STAR WARS

			      SHATTERPOINT

                           by MATTHEW STOWER 


     FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU

     In my dreams, I always do it right.
     In my dreams, I'm on the arena balcony.  Geonosis.  Orange  glare  slices
shadow from my eyes. Below on the  sand:  Obi-Wan  Kenobi,  Anakin  Skywalker,
Senator Padme Amidala. On the rough-shaped stone within reach of my arm:  Nute
Gunray. Within reach of my blade: Jango Fett.
     And Master Dooku.
     No. Master no more. Count Dooku.
     I may never get used to calling him that. Even in dreams.
     Jango Fett bristles with weapons. An instinctive  killer:  the  deadliest
man in the galaxy. Jango can kill me in less than a second. I know it. Even if
I had never seen Kenobi's report from Kamino, I can feel  the  violence  Jango
radiates: in the Force, a pulsar of death.
     But I do it right.
     My blade doesn't light the underside of Fett's square jaw. I don't  waste
time with words. I don't hesitate.
     I believe.
     In my dreams, the purple flare of my blade  sizzles  the  gray  hairs  of
Dooku's beard, and in the critical semisecond it takes Jango Fett to  aim  and
fire, I twitch that blade and take Dooku with me into death.
     And save the galaxy from civil war.
     I could have done it.
     I could have done it.
     Because I knew. I could feel it.
     In the swirl of the Force around me, I could feel the  connections  Dooku
had forged among Jango and the Trade Federation,  the  Geonosians,  the  whole
Separatist movement: connections of greed and  fear,  of  deception  and  bald
intimidation. I did not know what they were-I  did  not  know  how  Dooku  had
forged them, or why-but I felt their power: the power of what I now know is  a
web of treason he had woven to catch the galaxy.
     I could feel that without him to maintain its weave, to repair its  flaws
and double its thinning strands, the web would rot, would  shrivel  and  decay
until a mere breath would shred it and scatter its strings into  the  infinite
stellar winds.
     Dooku was the shatterpoint.
     I knew it.
     That is my gift.
     Imagine a Corusca gem: a mineral whose interlocking crystalline structure
makes it harder than durasteel. You can strike one with a five-kilo hammer and
do no more than dent the hammer's face. Yet the same cystalline structure that
gives the Corusca strength also gives it shatterpoints: spots where a  precise
application of carefully measured force-no more than a gentle  tap-will  break
it into pieces. But to find these shatterpoints, to  use  them  to  shape  the
Corusca gem into beauty and utility, requires  years  of  study,  an  intimate
understanding of crystal structure, and rigorous practice to train the hand in
the perfect combination of strength and precision to produce the desired cut.
     Unless you have a talent like mine.
     I can see shatterpoints.
     The sense is not sight, but see is the closest word Basic has for it:  it
is a perception, a feel of how what I look upon fits into the Force,  and  how
the Force binds it to itself and to  everything  else.  I  was  six  or  seven
standard years old-well into my training in the Jedi Temple-before I  realized
that other students, full-grown Jedi Knights, even wise Masters,  could  sense
such connections  only  with  difficulty,  and  only  with  concentration  and
practice. The Force shows  me  strengths  and  weaknesses,  hidden  flaws  and
unexpected uses. It shows me vectors of stress that squeeze or stretch, torque
or shear; it shows me how patterns of these  vectors  intersect  to  form  the
matrix of reality.
     Put simply: when I look at you through the Force, I  can  see  where  you
break.
     I looked at Jango Fett on the sand in  the  Geonosian  arena.  A  perfect
combination of weapons, skills, and the will  to  use  them:  an  interlocking
crystal of killer. The Force hinted a shatterpoint,  and  I  left  a  headless
corpse on the sand. The deadliest man in the galaxy.
     Now: just dead.
     Situations have shatterpoints, like gems. But  those  of  situations  are
fluid, ephemeral, appearing for a bare instant, vanishing again  to  leave  no
trace of their existence. They are always a function of timing.
     There is no such thing as a second chance.
     If-when-I next encounter Dooku, he will  be  the  war's  shatterpoint  no
longer. I can't stop this war with a single death.
     But on that day in the Geonosian arena, I could have.
     Some days after the battle, Master Yoda had  found  me  in  a  meditation
chamber at the Temple. "Your friend he was," the ancient Master had said, even
as he limped through the door. It is a peculiar gift of Yoda's that he  always
seems to know what I'm thinking. "Respect you owed him.  Even  affection.  Cut
him down you could not-not for merely a feeling."
     But I could have.
     I should have.
     Our Order prohibits personal attachments for precisely this reason. Had I
not honored him so-even loved him-the galaxy might  be  at  peace  right  now.
Merely a feeling, Yoda said.
     I am a Jedi.
     I have been trained since birth to trust my feelings.
     But which feelings should I trust?
     When I faced the choice to kill a former Jedi Master, or to  save  Kenobi
and young Skywalker and the Senator... I  let  the  Force  choose  for  me.  I
followed my instincts.
     I made the Jedi choice.
     And so: Dooku escaped. And so: the galaxy is at war. And so: many  of  my
friends have been slaughtered.
     There is no such thing as a second chance.
     Strange: Jedi I am, yet I drown in regret for having spared a life.
     Many survivors of Geonosis suffer from  nightmares.  I  have  heard  tale
after tale from the Jedi healers  who  have  counseled  them.  Nightmares  are
inevitable; there has not been such a slaughter of Jedi since  the  Sith  War,
four thousand years ago. None of them could have imagined how it would feel to
stand in that arena, surrounded by  the  corpses  of  their  friends,  in  the
blazing orange noon and the stench and the blood-soaked sand.  I  may  be  the
only veteran of Geonosis who doesn't have nightmares of that place.
     Because in my dreams, I always do it right.
     My nightmare is what I find when I wake up.
     Jedi have shatterpoints, too.
     Mace Windu stopped in the doorway and tried to recover his calm.  An  arc
of sweat darkened the cowl of his robe, and his runic clung to his skin:  he'd
come straight from a training bout  at  the  Temple  without  taking  time  to
shower. And the brisk pace-almost a jog-he'd maintained through the  labyrinth
of the Galactic Senate had offered no chance for him to cool off.
     Palpatine's private office, in the Supreme Chancellor's suite beneath the
Senate's Great Rotunda, opened before him,  vast  and  stark.  An  expanse  of
polished ebonite floor; a few simple, soft chairs; a flat trestle  desk,  also
ebonite. No pictures, paintings, or decorations other than two  lone  statues;
only  floor-to-ceiling  holographic  repeaters  showing  real-time  images  of
Galactic City as seen from the pinnacle  of  the  Senate  Dome.  Outside,  the
orbital mirrors would soon turn their faces  from  Coruscant's  sun,  bringing
twilight to the capital.
     Within was only Yoda. Alone. Perched solemnly on his  hover-chair,  hands
folded around the head of his stick. "On time you  are,"  the  ancient  Master
observed, "but barely. Take a chair; composed we must be. Serious, I fear this
is."
     'I wasn't expecting a party." Mace's boot heels clacked on  the  polished
floor. He pulled one of the soft, plain chairs closer to Yoda and  sat  beside
him, facing the desk. Tension made his jaw ache. "The  courier  said  this  is
about the operation on Haruun Kal."
     The fact that of all the members of the Jedi  Council  and  the  Republic
High Command, only the two senior members of the Council had been summoned  by
the Chancellor, implied that the news was not good.
     These two senior members could hardly have appeared more different.  Yoda
was barely two-thirds of a meter tall, with skin green as Chadian  wander-kelp
and great bulging eyes that could sometimes seem almost to take on a light  of
their own; Mace was tall for a human, less than a hand's breadth short of  two
meters, with shoulders broad and powerful, heavy arms, dark eyes, and  a  grim
set to his jaw. Where Yoda had let his sparse remnants  of  hair  straggle  at
random, Mace's skull was smooth-shaven, the color of polished lammas.
     But their greatest difference perhaps lay in the fee!  of  the  two  Jedi
Masters. Yoda emanated a sense of mellow  wisdom,  combined  with  the  impish
sense of humor characteristic of the true sage; but his  great  age  and  vast
experience sometimes made him seem a bit removed, even detached. Nearing  nine
hundred years of age led him  to  naturally  take  the  long  view.  Mace,  in
contrast, had been elevated to the Jedi Council before his thirtieth birthday.
His demeanor was exactly opposite. Lean. Driven. Intense. He radiated incisive
intellect and unconquerable will.
     As of the Battle of Geonosis, which had opened the Clone Wars,  Mace  had
been on the Council for more than twenty standard years. It had been ten since
anyone had last seen him smile.
     He sometimes wondered privately if he would ever smile again.
     'But it is not the planet Haruun Kal that brings you in a sweat  to  this
office," Yoda said now. His tone was light and understanding, but his gaze was
sharp. "Concerned for Depa, you are."
     Mace lowered his head. "I know: the Force will bring what  it  will.  But
Republic Intelligence has reported that  the  Separatists  have  pulled  back;
their base outside Pelek Baw is abandoned-"
     'Yet return she has not."
     Mace knotted his ringers together. A breath brought his voice back to its
customary deep, flat dispassion. "Haruun Kal is still nominally  a  Separatist
planet. And she's a wanted woman. It won't be easy for her to get offworld. Or
even to signal for extraction-the  local  militia  use  all  kinds  of  signal
jamming, and whatever they don't jam they triangulate;  whole  partisan  bands
have been wiped out by one incautious transmission-"
     'Your friend she is." Yoda used his stick to poke Mace on the arm.  "Care
for her, you do."
     Mace didn't meet his eyes. His feelings for Depa Billaba ran deep.
     She had been onworld for four standard months. She  couldn't  communicate
regularly; Mace had tracked her activities by sporadic  Republic  Intelligence
reports of sabotage at the Separatist  starfighter  base,  and  the  fruitless
expeditions of the Balawai militias  trying-and  failing-to  wipe  out  Depa's
guerrillas, or even contain them. More than a month ago, Republic Intelligence
had sent word that the Separatists had pulled back  to  the  Gevarno  Cluster,
because they could no longer maintain and defend their base. Her success could
not have been more brilliant.
     But he feared to learn at what cost.
     'But it can't simply be that she's missing, or..." he  murmured.  A  dark
flush spread over his bare dome of skull when  he  realized  he'd  spoken  his
thoughts aloud. He felt Yoda's eyes on him still, and gave half an  apologetic
shrug. "I was only thinking: if she'd been captured or-or  killed-there  would
be no need for such secrecy..."
     The creases on Yoda's face deepened around his mouth, and  he  made  that
tchk sound of mild  disapproval  that  any  Jedi  would  instantly  recognize.
"Frivolous, speculation is, when patience will reveal all."
     Mace nodded silently. One did not argue with Master  Yoda;  in  the  Jedi
Temple, this was  learned  in  infancy.  No  Jedi  ever  forgot  it.  "It's...
maddening, Master. If only... I mean, ten years  ago,  we  could  have  simply
reached out-"
     'Cling to the past, a Jedi cannot," Yoda interrupted sternly.  His  green
stare reminded Mace not  to  speak  of  the  shadow  that  had  darkened  Jedi
perception of the Force. This was not discussed outside the Temple.  Not  even
here. "Member of the Jedi Council, she is. Powerful Jedi. Brilliant warrior-"
     'She'd better be." Mace tried to smile. "I trained her."
     'But worry you do. Too much. Not only for Depa, but  for  all  the  Jedi.
Ever since Geonosis."
     The smile wasn't working. He stopped trying. "I don't want to talk  about
Geonosis."
     'Known this for months, I have." Yoda poked him again,  and  Mace  looked
up. The ancient Master leaned toward him, ears curled forward,  and  his  huge
green eyes glimmered softly. "But when, finally, to talk you want... listen, I
will."
     Mace accepted this with a silent inclination  of  his  head.  He'd  never
doubted it. But still, he preferred to discuss something else.
     Anything else.
     'Look at this place," he murmured, nodding at the expanse of the  Supreme
Chancellor's office. "Even after ten years, the difference  between  Palpatine
and Valorum... How this office was, in those days-"
     Yoda lifted his head in that reverse nod of his. "Remember Finis  Valorum
well, I do. Last of a great line, he was." Some vast distance drifted  through
his gaae: he might have been looking back along his nine hundred  years  as  a
Jedi.
     It was unsettling to contemplate that the Republic, seemingly eternal  in
its millennium-long reign, was not much older than Yoda himself. Sometimes, in
the tales Yoda told of his long-vanished younger days, a Jedi might have heard
the youth of the Republic itself: brash, confident, bursting with vitality  as
it expanded across the galaxy, bringing peace and  justice  to  cluster  after
cluster, system after system, world after world.
     For Mace, it was even more unsettling to contemplate  the  contrast  Yoda
was seeing.
     'Connected with the past, Valorum was. Rooted deep in tradition's  soil."
In the wave of his hand, Yoda seemed to summon Finis Valorum's dazzling  array
of antique furniture gleaming with exotic oils, his  artworks  and  sculptures
and treasures from a thousand worlds. Legacies of thirty generations of  House
Valorum had once rilled this office. "Perhaps too deep: a man of history,  was
Valorum. Palpatine..." Yoda's eyes drifted closed. "A man of today, Pal-patine
is."
     'You say that as though it pains you."
     'Perhaps it does. Or perhaps: my pain is only of this day, not its man.
     'I prefer the office like this." Mace half nodded  around  the  sweep  of
open floor. Austere. Unpretentious and  uncompromising.  To  Mace,  it  was  a
window into Palpatine's character: the Supreme Chancellor lived  entirely  for
the  Republic.  Simple  in  dress.  Direct   in   speech.   Unconcerned   with
ornamentation or physical comfort. "A shame he can't touch the Force. He might
have made a fine Jedi."
     'But then, another Supreme Chancellor would we need." Yoda smiled gently.
"Better this way, perhaps it is."
     Mace acknowledged the point with a slight bow.
     'Admire him, you do."
     Mace frowned. He'd never thought about it. His adult life had been  spent
at the orders of the Supreme Chancellor... but he served the office,  not  the
man. What did he think of the Supreme Chancellor as a person? What  difference
coukl that make?
     'I suppose I do." Mace vividly recalled what  the  Force  had  shown  him
while he watched Palpatine sworn in as Supreme Chancellor, ten  years  before:
Palpatine was himself a shatterpoint on which  the  future  of  the  Republic-
perhaps even the whole galaxy-depended. "The only other person I  can  imagine
leading the Republic through this dark hour is... well-" He opened a hand.  "-
you, Master Yoda."
     Yoda rocked back on his hover chair and made the  rustling  snuffle  that
served him for a laugh. "No politician am I, foolish one."
     He still occasionally spoke as though Mace were a  student.  Mace  didn't
mind. It made him feel young. Everything else these days made him feel old.
     Yoda's laughter faded. "And no fit leader for this Republic would I
     be." He lowered his voice  even  further,  to  barely  above  a  whisper.
"Clouded by darkness are my eyes; the  Force  shows  me  only  suffering,  and
destruction, and the rise of a long, long night. Better off without the Force,
leaders perhaps are; able to see well enough, young Palpatine seems."
     'Young" Palpatine-who had at least ten years on Mace,  and  looked  twice
that-chose that moment to enter the room, accompanied  by  another  man.  Yoda
stepped down from his hoverchair. Mace  rose  in  respect.  The  Jedi  Masters
bowed, greeting the Supreme Chancellor  with  their  customary  formality.  He
waved the courtesies  aside.  Palpatine  looked  tired:  flesh  seemed  to  be
dissolving beneath his sagging skin, deepening his already hollowed cheeks.
     The man with Palpatine was hardly larger than a boy, though clearly  well
past  forty;  lank,  thinning  brown  hair  draped  a   face   so   thoroughly
undistinguished that Mace could forget it the instant  he  glanced  away.  His
eyes were red-rimmed, he held a cloth handkerchief to his nose, and he  looked
so much like  some  minor  bureaucratic  functionary-a  clerk  in  a  dead-end
government post, with job  security  and  absolutely  nothing  else-that  Mace
automatically assumed he was a spy.
     'We have news of Depa Billaba."
     Despite his earlier reasoning, the simple  sadness  in  the  Chancellor's
voice sent Mace's stomach plummeting.
     'This man has just come from Haruun Kal.  I'm  afraid-well,  perhaps  you
should simply examine the evidence for yourself."
     'What is it?" Mace's mouth went dry as ash. "Has she been captured?"  The
treatment a captured Jedi could  expect  from  Dooku's  Separatists  had  been
demonstrated on Geonosis.
     'No, Master Windu," Palpatine said. "I'm afraid-I'm afraid it's  quite  a
bit worse."
     The agent  opened  a  large  travelcase  and  produced  an  old-fashioned
holoprojector. He spent a moment fiddling with controls,  and  then  an  image
bloomed above the mirror-polished ebonite that served as Palpatine's desk.
     Yoda's ears flattened, and his eyes narrowed to slits.
     Palpatine looked away. "I have seen too much of this already," he said.
     Mace's hands became fists. He couldn't seem to get his breath.
     The shimmering corpses were each the  size  of  his  finger.  He  counted
nineteen. They  looked  human,  or  close  to  it.  There  was  a  scatter  of
prefabricated huts, blasted and burned and broken. The ruins of what must have
once been a stockade wall made a  ring  around  the  scene.  The  jungle  that
surrounded them all stood four decimeters high, and covered a meter and a half
of Palpatine's desk.
     After a moment, the agent sniffled apologetically. "This is-er, seems  to
be-the work of Loyalist partisans, under the command of Master Billaba."
     Yoda stared.
     Mace stared.
     There-those wounds... Mace needed a better view. When he reached into the
jungle, his hand crawled  with  the  bright  ripples  of  the  holoprojector's
scanning-matrix lasers. "These."
     He passed his hand through a group of three bodies that gaped with ragged
wounds. "Enhance these."
     The Republic Intelligence agent answered without taking his  handkerchief
away from his reddened eyes. "Uh, I'm uh-Master Windu, this recording is,  er,
is quite unsophisticated-almost, uh, primitive-" His  voice  vanished  into  a
sneeze that jerked him forward as though he'd been slapped on the back of  the
head. "Sorry-sorry, I can't-my system won't  tolerate  histamine  suppressors.
Every time I come to Coruscant-"
     Mace's hand didn't move. He didn't look up. He waited while  the  agent's
whine trickled to silence. Nineteen corpses. And this man complained about his
allergies.
     'Enhance these," Mace repeated.
     'I, ah-yes. Sir." The agent manipulated the holoprojector's controls with
hands that didn't  quite  tremble.  Not  quite.  The  jungle  flicked  out  of
existence. It reappeared an instant later, spread across  ten  meters  of  the
office's floor. The tangled upper branches of the holographic trees had become
glimmering scan patterns on the ceiling; the  corpses  were  now  almost  half
life-sized.
     The agent ducked his head, scrubbing  furiously  at  his  nose  with  the
handkerchief. "Sorry, Master Windu. Sorry. But the system-
     ." " its-
     'Primitive. Yes." Mace waded through the light-cast images until he could
squat beside the bodies. He rested his elbows on his knees, folding his  hands
together before his face.
     Yoda walked closer, then crouched as he leaned  in  for  a  better  view.
After a moment, Mace looked up into his sad green eyes. "See?"
     'Yes... yes," Yoda croaked. "But from this, no conclusion can be drawn."
     'That's my point."
     'For those of us who are not Jedi-" Supreme Chancellor Palpatine's  voice
had the warm strength of a career politician's. He rounded his  desk,  on  his
face the slightly puzzled smile of a good man who faced an ugly situation with
hope that everything might still turn out all right. "-perhaps you'll explain?
"
     'Yes, sir. The other bodies don't tell us much, between decomposition and
scavenger damage. But some of the mutilation on the soft tissue here-" A curve
of Mace's hand traced gaping slashes across a  holographic  female  torso.  "-
isn't from claws or teeth. And they didn't come from a powered weapon. See the
scoring on her ribs? A lightsaber-even a vibroblade-would have  slashed  right
through the bone. This was done with a dead blade, sir."
     Revulsion tightened the Supreme Chancellor's  face.  "A-dead  blade?  You
mean just-like a piece of metal? Just a sharp piece of metal?"
     'A very sharp piece of metal, sir." Mace cocked his head a centimeter  to
the right. "Or ceramic. Transparisteel. Even carbonite."
     Palpatine took a deep breath as though suppressing a shudder. "It sounds.
.. dreadfully crude. And painful."
     'Sometimes it is, sir. Not always." He didn't bother to  explain  how  he
knew. "But these slashes are parallel, and all of nearly the same length; it's
likely she was dead before the cuts were made. Or at least unconscious."
     'Or-" The agent sniffled, and coughed apologetically. "-just, er, y'know,
tied up."
     Mace stared at him. Yoda closed his eyes. Palpatine lowered his  head  as
though in pain.
     'There is, uh, a history of, uh, I guess you'd say, recreational  torture
in the Haruun Kal conflict. On both sides." The agent flushed as though he was
ashamed to know such things. "Sometimes, people-people hate so much, that just
killing the enemy isn't enough..."
     A fist clenched in Mace's chest: that this soft little man-this civilian-
could accuse Depa Billaba of such an atrocity, even  by  implication,  grabbed
his heart with sick fury. A long cold stare showed him  every  place  on  this
soft man's soft body where one sharp blow would kill; the agent blanched as if
he could count them all in Mace's eyes.
     But Mace had been a Jedi far too long for anger to gain an easy  grip.  A
breath or two opened that fist around his heart, and he stood.  "I  have  seen
nothing to indicate Depa was involved."
     'Master Windu-" Palpatine began.
     'What was the military value of this outpost?"
     'Military value?" The agent looked startled. "Why, none, I suppose. These
were Balawai jungle prospectors. Jups, they call 'em. Some jups operate  as  a
kind of irregular militia, but irregulars are nearly always  men.  There  were
six women here. And Balawai militia units never, ah, never  bring  their,  ah,
children..."
     'Children," Mace echoed.
     The agent nodded reluctantly. "Three.  Mm,  bioscans  indicate  one  girl
about twelve, the other two possibly fraternal twins. Boy and  a  girl.  About
nine. Had to use bioscans..." His sickly eyes  asked  Mace  not  to  make  him
finish.
     Because a few days in the  jungle  hadn't  left  enough  of  them  to  be
identified any other way.
     Mace said, "I understand."
     'These weren't militia, Master Windu. Just Balawai jungle prospectors  in
the wrong place at the wrong time."
     'Jungle prospectors?" Palpatine appeared politely interested.  "And  what
are Balawai?"
     'Offworlders, sir," Mace  said.  "The  jungles  of  Haruun  Kal  are  the
galaxy's sole source of thyssel bark, as well as portaak leaf, jinsol, tyruun,
and lammas. Among others."
     'Spices and exotic woods? And these are valuable enough to draw  offworld
emigrants? Into a war zone?"
     'Have you priced thyssel bark lately?"
     'I-" Palpatine smiled regretfully. "I don't  care  for  it,  actually.  I
suppose my tastes are pedestrian; you can take a boy out of the Mid Rim, but..
."
     Mace shook his head. "Not relevant, sir. My point: these were  civilians.
Depa wouldn't be involved in something like this. She couldn't."
     'Hasty, your statement is," Yoda said gravely. "Seen all evidence, I fear
we have not."
     Mace looked at the agent. The agent flushed again.
     'Well, er, yes-Master Yoda is correct. This, uh, recording-" He  twitched
his head around at the ghostly corpses that filled the office. "-was made with
the prospectors' own equipment; it's adapted to Haruun Kal  work,  where  more
sophisticated electronics-"
     'I don't need a lesson on Haruun Kal." Mace's voice went sharp.  "I  need
your evidence."
     'Yes, yes of course, Master Windu..." The agent fished in his  travelcase
for a second or two, then came up with an old-fashioned data wafer of crystal.
He handed it over. "It's, uh, audio only, but-we've done voiceprint  analysis.
It's not exact-and there's some ambient noise, other  voices,  jungle  sounds,
that kind of thing-but we put match probability in the ninety percent range."
     Mace weighed the crystal wafer in his hand. He stared down at it.  There.
Right there: the flick of a fingernail could crack it in two.,' should do  it,
he thought. Crush this thing. Snap it in half right now. Destroy it unheard.
     Because he knew. He could feel it. In the Force,  stress  lines  spidered
out from the wafer like frost scaling supercooled transparisteel. He could not
read the pattern, but he could feel its power.
     This would be ugly.
     'Where did you find it?"
     'It was-uh, at the scene. Of the massacre. It was... well, at the scene."
     'Where did you find it?"
     The agent flinched.
     Again, Mace took a breath. Then another. With the third, the fist in  his
chest relaxed. "I am sorry."
     Sometimes he forgot how intimidating some men found his height and voice.
Not to mention his reputation. He did not wish to be feared.
     At least, not by those loyal to the Republic.
     'Please," he said. "It might be significant."
     The agent mumbled something.
     'I'm sorry?"
     'I said, it was in her mouth." He waved a hand in the  general  direction
of the holographic corpse at Mace's feet. "Someone had... fixed her jaw  shut,
so scavengers wouldn't get at it when they... well, y'know, scavengers  prefer
the, the, er, the tongue..."
     Nausea bloomed below Mace's ribs. His fingertips tingled. He stared  down
at the woman's image. Those marks on her face-he had thought  they  were  just
marks. Or some kind of fungus, or a colony of mold. Now his eyes made sense of
them, and he wished they hadn't: dull gold-colored lumps under her chin.
     Brassvine thorns.
     Someone had used them to nail her jaw shut.
     He had to turn away. He realized that he had to sit down, too.
     The agent continued, "Our station boss got a tip and sent me to check  it
out. I hired a steamcrawler from some busted-out jups,  rented  a  handful  of
townies who can handle heavy weapons, and crawled up there. What  we  found...
well, you can see it. That data wafer-when I found it..."
     Mace stared at the man as though he'd  never  seen  him  before.  And  he
hadn't: only now, finally, was he truly seeing him. An undistinguished  little
man:  soft  face  and  uncertain  voice,  shaky  hands   and   allergies:   an
undistinguished little man who must have  resources  of  toughness  that  Mace
could barely imagine. To have walked into  a  scene  that  Mace  could  barely
stomach even in a bloodless, translu cent laser image; to have  had  to  smell
them-touch them-to pry open a dead woman's mouth...
     And then to bring the recordings here, so  that  he  could  live  it  all
again-
     Mace could have done it. He thought so. Probably. He'd been some  places,
and seen some things.
     Not like this.
     The agent said, "Our sources are pretty sure the tip came  from  the  ULF
itself."
     Palpatine glanced a question. Mace spoke without taking his eyes off  the
agent. "The Upland  Liberation  Front,  sir.  That's  Depa's  partisan  group;
'uplanders' is a rough translation of Korunnai-the name  the  mountain  tribes
give themselves."
     'Korunnai?" Palpatine frowned absently. "Aren't those your people, Master
Windu?"
     'My... kin." He made himself unclench his jaw. "Yes, Chancellor. You have
a good memory."
     'A politician's trick." Palpatine gave a  gently  self-deprecating  smile
and waved a dismissive hand. "Please go on."
     The agent shrugged as though there was little more to tell.  "There  have
been a lot of... disturbing  reports.  Execution  of  prisoners.  Ambushes  of
civilians. On both sides.  Usually  they  can't  be  verified.  The  jungle...
swallows everything. So when we got this tip-"
     'You found this because somebody wanted you to find  it,"  Mace  finished
for him. "And now you think-"
     Mace turned the data wafer over and over through his fingers, watching it
catch splinters of light. "You think those people might have been killed  just
to deliver this message."
     'What a hideous idea!" Palpatine lowered himself slowly onto the edge  of
his desk. He appealed to the agent. "This can't be true, can it?"
     The agent only hung his head.
     Yoda's ears curled backward, and his  eyes  narrowed.  "Some  messages...
most important, is how they are framed. Secondary, their content is."
     Palpatine shook his head  in  disbelief.  "These  ULF  partisans-we  ally
ourselves with them? The Jedi ally with them? What sort of monsters are they?"
     'I don't know." Mace handed the wafer back to the agent. "Let's find out.
"
     He slotted it into a port on the side of the holoprojector and touched  a
control.
     The holoprojector's phased-wave speakers brought the jungle  around  them
to life with noise: the rush of wind-rattled leaves, skrills and  clatters  of
insect calls, dim dopplered shrieks of passing birds, the howls and coughs  of
distant predators. Through the eddies and boils of  sound  drifted  a  whisper
sinuous as a riversnake: a human or near-human whisper, a voice  murmuring  in
Basic, sometimes comprehensible for a word here  or  phrase  there,  sometimes
twisting below the distorting ripples of the aural surface.  Mace  caught  the
words Jedi, and night-or knife-and something about look between the stars...
     He frowned at the agent. "You can't clean this up?"
     'This is cleaned up." The agent produced a datapad from his  trav-elcase,
keyed it  alight,  and  passed  it  to  Mace.  "We  made  a  transcript.  It's
provisional. Best we can do."
     The transcript was fragmentary, but enough to draw chills up Mace's arms:
Jedi Temple... taught (or possibly taut)... dark... an enemy.  But...  Jedi...
under cover of night.
     One whisper was entirely clear. He  read  the  words  on  the  data-pad's
screen as the whisper seemed to come from just behind his shoulder.
     ,' use the night, and the night uses me.
     He forgot to breathe. This was bad.
     It got worse.
     The whisper strengthened to a voice. A woman's voice.
     Depa's voice.
     On the datapad in his hand, and murmuring in the air behind his shoulder-
     ,' have become the darkness in the jungle.
     The recording went on. And on.
     Her murmur drained him: of emotion, of strength,  even  of  thought;  the
longer she rambled, the emptier he got. Yet her final words still triggered  a
dull shock inside his chest.
     She was talking to him...
     I know you will come for me, Mace. You should never have  sent  me  here.
And I should never have come. But what's done can never be undone.  I  knowyou
think I've gone mad. I haven't. What's happened to me is worse.
     I've gone sane.
     That's why you II come, Mace. That's why you'll have to.
     Because nothing is more dangerous than a Jedi who's finally sane.
     Her voice trailed off into the jungle-mutter.
     No one moved or spoke. Mace sat with interlocked fingers  supporting  his
chin. Yoda leaned on his cane, eyes  shut,  mouth  pinched  with  inner  pain.
Palpatine stared solemnly through the holographic jungle,  as  though  he  saw
something real beyond its boundary.
     'That's-uh, that's all there is." The agent extended a hesitant  hand  to
the holoprojector and flicked a control. The jungle vanished like a bad dream.
     They all  stirred,  rousing  themselves,  instinctively  adjusting  their
clothing. Palpatine's office now looked unreal: as though the  clean  carpeted
floor and crisp lines of furniture, the pure filtered air,  and  the  view  of
Coruscant that filled the large windows were the holographic  projection,  and
they all still sat in the jungle.
     As though only the jungle were real.
     Mace spoke first.
     'She's right." He lifted his head from his hands. "I  have  to  go  after
her. Alone."
     Palpatine's eyebrows twitched. "That seems... unwise."
     'Concur with Chancellor Palpatine, I do," Yoda said slowly. "Great  risks
there would be. Too valuable you are. Send others, we should."
     'There is no one else who can do this."
     'Surely, Master Windu"-Palpatine's smile was respectfully disbelieving-"a
Republic Intelligence covert ops team, or even a team of Jedi-"
     'No." Mace rose, and straightened his shoulders. "It has to be me."
     'Please, we all understand your concern for your former  student,  Master
Windu, but surely-"
     'Reasons he must have, Supreme Chancellor," Yoda said. "Listen  to  them,
we should."
     Even Palpatine found that one did not argue with Master Yoda.
     Mace struggled to put his certainty into words.  This  difficulty  was  a
function of his particular gift of perception. Some things were so obvious  to
him that they were hard to describe:  like  explaining  how  he  knew  it  was
raining while he stood in a thunderstorm.
     'If Depa has... gone mad-or worse, fallen to the dark  side,"  he  began,
"it's vital that the Jedi know why. That we discover what did it to her. Until
we know this, no more  Jedi  should  be  exposed  to  it  than  is  absolutely
necessary. Also, this all might be entirely false:  a  deliberate  attempt  to
incriminate her. That ambient noise on the recording..."  He  glanced  at  the
agent. "If her voice was faked-say, synthesized by computer-that  noise  could
be there precisely to blur the evidence of trickery, couldn't it?"
     The agent nodded. "But why would someone want to frame her?"
     Mace waved this off. "Regardless, she must be brought in. And soon-before
rumor of such massacres reaches the wider galaxy. Even if she had  nothing  to
do with them, having a Jedi's name associated with these crimes is a threat to
the public trust in the Jedi. She must answer any charges before they are ever
publicly made."
     'Granted, she must be brought in," Palpatine allowed. "But  the  question
remains: why you?'
     'Because she might not want to come."
     Palpatine looked thoughtful.
     Yoda's head came up,  and  his  eyes  opened,  gleaming  at  the  Supreme
Chancellor. "If rogue she has gone... to find her, difficult it  will  be.  To
apprehend her..." His voice dropped, as though  the  words  caused  him  pain.
"Dangerous, that will be."
     'Depa was my Padawan." Mace moved away from the desk and stared  out  the
window  at  the  shimmering  twilight  that  slowly  darkened  the   capital's
cityscape. "The bond of Master and Padawan is... intense.  No  one  knows  her
better-and I have more experi ence in those  jungles  than  any  other  living
Jedi. I'm the only one who can find her if she doesn't want to be  found.  And
if she must be-"
     He swallowed, and stared at the moondisk of light scattered from  one  of
the orbital mirrors. "If she must be... stopped," he said at length, "I may be
the only one who can do that, too."
     Palpatine's eyebrows twitched polite incomprehension.
     Mace took a deep breath, finding himself once more looking at his  hands,
through his hands, seeing only an  image  in  his  mind,  sharp  as  a  dream:
lightsaber against lightsaber in the Temple's training halls, the green  flash
of Depa's blade seeming to come from everywhere at once.
     He could not unmake what he had made.
     There were no second chances.
     Her voice echoed inside him: Nothing is more dangerous than a Jedi  who's
finally sane, but he said only-
     'She is a master of Vaapad."
     In the silence that followed, he studied the folds and  wrinkles  of  his
interlaced fingers, focusing his attention into his visual field  to  hold  at
bay dark dream-ghosts of Depa's blade flashing toward Jedi necks.
     'Vaapad?" Palpatine repeated, eventually. Perhaps  he'd  grown  tired  of
waiting for someone to explain. "Isn't that some kind of animal?"
     'A predator of Sarapin," Yoda supplied gravely. "Also the nickname it is,
given by students, for the seventh form of lightsaber combat."
     'Hmp. I've always heard there are only six."
     'Six there were, for generations of Jedi.  The  seventh...  is  not  well
known. A powerful form it is. Deadliest of all... But dangerous it  is-to  its
master, as well as its opponent.  Few  have  studied.  One  student  alone  to
mastery has risen."
     'But if she's the only master-and this style is so deadly-what makes  you
think-"
     'She's not the only master, sir." He lifted his head to meet  Palpatine's
frown. "She is my only student to become a master."
     'Yo"r only student..." Palpatine echoed.
     'I didn't study Vaapad." Mace let his hands fall to his sides. "I created
it."
     Palpatine's brows drew together thoughtfully. "Yes, I seem to recall now:
a reference in your report on the treason of  Master  Sora  Bulq.  Didn't  you
train him as well? Didn't he also claim to be  a  master  of  this  Vaapad  of
yours?"
     'Sora Bulq was not my student."
     'Your... associate, then?"
     'And he did not master Vaapad," Mace said grimly. "Vaapad mastered him."
     'Ah-ah, I see..."
     'With respect, sir, I don't think you do."
     'I see enough to worry me, just a bit." The warmth of  Palpatine's  smile
robbed insult from his words. "The  relationship  of  Master  and  Padawan  is
intense, you said; and I well believe it. When you faced Dooku on Geonosis..."
     'I prefer," Mace said softly, "not to talk about Geonosis, Chancellor."
     'Depa Billaba was your Padawan. And she is  still  perhaps  your  closest
friend, is she not? If she must be slain, are you so certain  you  can  strike
her down?"
     Mace looked at the floor, at Yoda, at the agent, and in the end he had to
meet Palpatine's eyes once more. It was not merely Palpatine of Naboo who  had
asked; this question had come from the Supreme Chancellor. His office demanded
an answer.
     'May the Force grant, sir," Mace said slowly, "that I will  not  have  to
find out."
     PART ONE
     THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL
     T
     hrough the curved transparisteel, Haruun Kal  was  a  wall  of  mountain-
punched clouds beside him. It looked close  enough  to  touch.  The  shuttle's
orbit spiraled slowly toward the surface: soon enough  he  would  be  able  to
touch it in truth.
     The insystem shuttle was only a twenty-seater, and even so it was  three-
quarters empty. The shuttle line had bought it used from a tour  company;  the
tubelike passenger fuselage was entirely transparisteel, its exterior  scarred
and fogged with microbody pits, its interior bare except for  strips  of  gray
no-skid laid along the aisles.
     Mace Windu was the lone human. His shipmates were two  Kubaz  who  fluted
excitedly about the culinary possibilities of pinch beetles and buzzworms, and
a mismatched couple who seemed to be some kind  of  itinerant  comedy  act,  a
Kitonak and a Pho Ph'eahian whose canned banter made Mace wish  for  earplugs.
Or hard vacuum. Or plain old-fashioned deafness. They must have been far  down
on their luck, to be taking a tourist shuttle into  Pelek  Baw;  Haruun  Kal's
capital city is a place lounge acts go to die. Passenger liners on the Gevarno
Loop only stopped there at all because they had to drop into realspace  anyway
for the system transit.
     Mace sat as far from the others as the shuttle's limited space allowed.
     The Jedi Master wore clothing appropriate to his cover: a stained vest of
Corellian sand panther leather over a loose shirt that used to be  white,  and
skintight black pants with wear patches of gray. His boots carried a  hint  of
polish, but only above the ankle; the uppers were scuffed almost to suede. The
only parts of his ensemble that were well maintained were the  supple  holster
belted to his right thigh, and the gleaming Merr-Sonn Power  5  it  held.  His
lightsaber was stuffed into the kitbag beneath his seat, disguised as an  old-
fashioned glow rod.
     The datapad on his lap was also a disguise: though it worked well  enough
for him to encrypt his journal on it, most of  it  was  actually  a  miniature
subspace transmitter, frequency-locked to the band  monitored  by  the  medium
cruiser Halleck, onstation in the Ventran system.
     The  Korunnal  Highland  swung  into  view:  a  vast  plateau  of   every
conceivable  shade  of  green,  skirted  by  bottomless   swirls   of   cloud,
crisscrossed by interlocking mountain ranges. A few of the tallest peaks  were
capped with white; many of the shorter mountains plumed billows of  smoke  and
gas. The  eastern  half  of  the  highland  had  already  rolled  through  the
terminator; when the shuttle passed into the planet's shadow, gleams  of  dark
red and orange specked the world like predators' eyes beyond  the  ring  of  a
campfire's light: open calderae of the highland's many active volcanoes.
     It was beautiful. Mace barely noticed.
     He held the recording wand of the  fake  datapad  and  spoke  very,  very
softly.
     FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU
     [Initial Haruun Kal Entry]:
     Depa's down there. Right now.
     I shouldn't be thinking about this. I shouldn't be  thinking  about  her.
Not yet. But-She's down there. She's been down there for months.
     I can't imagine what might have happened to her. I don't want to imagine.
     I'll find out soon enough.
     Focus. I have to focus. Concentrate on what I know is true while  I  wait
for the mud to settle and the water to become clear...
     A lesson of Yoda's. But sometimes you can't wait.
     And sometimes the water never clears.
     I can focus on what I know about Haruun Kal. I know a lot.
     Here's some of it:
     HARUUN KAL (Al'har I): sole planet of the AL'HAR system.  Haruun  Kal  is
the name given to it in the language of the indigenous human  population,  the
Korunnai (uplanders). It translates to  Basic  as  "above  the  clouds."  From
space, the world appears to be oceanic, with only a few  green-topped  islands
rising from a restless multicolored sea. But this is deceptive: the  sea  that
these islands punctuate is not liquid, but an ocean of heavier-than-air  toxic
gases, which plume endlessly from the planet's innumerable  active  volcanoes.
Only on the mountaintops and  the  high  plateaus  can  oxygen-breathing  life
survive-and not on many of these; unless they rise  far  above  the  cloudsea,
they are vulnerable to Haruun Kal's  unpredictable  winds.  Especially  during
Haruun Kal's brief winter, when the thakiz  baw'kal-the  Downstorm-blows,  the
winds can whip the thick cloudsea high enough to scour lowlands free of oxygen
breathers within hours. Its  capital,  PELEK  BAW,  is  located  on  the  sole
inhabited landmass, the plateau known as the KORUNNAL  HIGHLAND,  and  is  the
largest permanent settlement on  this  primarily  jungle-covered  planet.  The
indigenous humans live in small seminomadic tribal  groups  called  ghosh  and
avoid the settlements, which are maintained by offworlders of a  wide  variety
of species. The Korunnai lump all  offworlders  and  settled  folk  under  the
somewhat contemptuous category  of  Balawai  ("downfolk").  There  is  a  long
history of unorganized local conflicts...
     L
     This doesn't help.
     I can't fit what I know of Haruun Kal into a guidebook  description.  Too
much of what I know is the color of the sunflash and the smell of the wind off
Grandfather's Shoulder, the silken ripple of a grasser's undercoat through  my
fingers, the hot fierce sting of an akk dog's Force-touch.
     I was born on Haruun Kal. Far back in the highland.
     I am a full-blooded Korun.
     A hundred generations of my ancestors breathed that air  and  drank  that
water, ate the fruit of that  soil  and  were  buried  deep  within  it.  I've
returned only once, thirty-five standard years ago-but  I  have  carried  that
world with me. The feel of it. The power of its storms. The up-swelling tangle
of its jungles. The thunder of its peaks.
     But it is not home. Home is Coruscant. Home is the Jedi Temple.
     I have no recollection of my infancy  among  the  Korunnai;  my  earliest
memory is of Yoda's kindly smile and enormous gentle eyes close above  me.  It
is still vivid. I don't know how old I might have been, but  I  am  certain  I
could not yet walk. Perhaps I was too young to even stand. In  memory,  I  can
see my plump infant's hands reaching up to tug at the white straggles of  hair
above Yoda's ears.
     I recall squalling-shrieking like a wounded glowbat, as Yoda  prefers  to
describe it-as some kind of toy, a rattle, it might have been, bobbed  in  the
air just beyond my grasp. I recall  how  no  amount  of  shouting,  screaming,
howling, or tears could draw that rattle one  millimeter  closer  to  my  tiny
fist. And I recall the instant I first reached for the toy  without  using  my
hands: how I could feel it hanging there, and I could  feel  how  Yoda's  mind
supported it... and a whisper of the Force began to hum in my ears.
     My next lesson: Yoda had come to take the  rattle  away,  and  I-with  my
infant's instinctive selfishness-had refused to release it,  holding  on  with
both my hands and all I could summon of the  Force.  The  rattle  broke-to  my
infant mind, a tragedy like the end of a world-for that had been Yoda's way of
introducing the Jedi law of nonattachment: holding too tightly to what we love
will destroy it.
     And break our hearts as well.
     That's a lesson I don't want to be thinking about right now.
     But I can't help myself. Not right now.
     Not while I'm up here, and Depa is down there.
     Depa Billaba  came  into  my  life  by  accident:  one  of  those  joyous
coincidences that are sometimes the gift of the galaxy. I found  her  after  I
fought and killed the pirates who had murdered her parents; these pirates  had
kidnapped their victims' lovely infant daughter. I  never  learned  what  they
wanted to do with her. Or to her. I refuse to speculate.
     An advantage of Jedi mental discipline: I can stop myself from  imagining
such things.
     She grew to girlhood in the Temple, and to womanhood  as  my  Padawan.The
proudest moment of my life was the day I stood and directed the  Jedi  Council
to welcome its newest member.
     She is one of the youngest Jedi ever to be named to the Council.  On  the
day of her elevation, Yoda suggested that it was my teaching that had  brought
her so far while still so young.
     He said this, I think, more from courtesy than from honesty; she came  so
far while still so young because she is who she is. My teaching had little  to
do with it. I have never met anyone like her.
     Depa is  more  than  a  friend  to  me.  She's  one  of  those  dangerous
attachments. She is the daughter I will never have.
     All the Jedi discipline in the galaxy cannot entirely overpower the human
heart.
     I hear her voice again and again:... you should never have sent me  here,
and I should never have come...
     I can't stop myself from reaching into the Force, though  I  know  it  is
useless. Since shortly before Qui-Gon Jinn and Obi-Wan Kenobi stood  in  front
of the Council to report the  rebirth  of  the  Sith,  a  mysterious  veil  of
darkness has clouded the Force. Close by-in both space and time-the  Force  is
as it has always been: guide and ally, my invisible eyes and unseen hands. But
when I try to search  through  the  Force  for  Depa,  I  find  only  shadows,
indistinct and threatening.The crystal purity of the Force has become a  thick
fog of menace.
     Again:... but what's done can never be undone...
     I can shake my head till my brain rattles, but I can't seem to drive away
those words. I must clear my mind; Pelek Baw is still Separatist, and  I  will
have to be alert. I must stop thinking about her.
     Instead, I think about the war.
     The Republic was caught entirely unprepared. After a  thousand  years  of
peace, no one-especially not us Jedi-truly believed civil war would ever come.
How could we? Not even Yoda could remember the last general war. Peace is more
than a tradition. It is the bedrock of civilization itself.
     This was the Confederacy's great  advantage:  the  Separatists  not  only
expected war, but counted on it.
     By the time the smoldering Clone War burst into  Geonosian  flame,  their
ships were already in motion. In the weeks that followed, while we Jedi tended
our wounds and mourned our dead, while the  Senate  scrambled  to  assemble  a
fleet-any kind of fleet-to match the power of the Confederacy  of  Independent
Systems,  while  Supreme  Chancellor  Palpatine  pleaded  and  bargained   and
sometimes had to outright threaten wavering Senators to not only stay loyal to
the Republic but also support its clone army  with  their  credits  and  their
resources, the Separatists had fanned  out  across  the  galaxy,  seeding  the
hyperspace lanes with their forces. The major approaches into Separatist space
were picketed by droid starfighters,  backed  up  by  newly  revealed  capital
ships: Geonosian Dreadnaughts that lumbered out from secret shipyards.
     Strategically, it was a masterpiece. Any thrust into the  worlds  at  the
core of the  Confederacy  would  be  blunted,  and  delayed  long  enough  for
Separatist reserves to engage it;  any  attack  with  sufficient  strength  to
swiftly overwhelm their pickets would leave hundreds or  thousands  of  worlds
open to swift Separatist reprisal. Behind their  droid-walled  frontier,  they
could gather their forces at leisure, striking out to swallow Republic systems
piecemeal.
     Even before the Republic was ready to fight, we had lost.
     Yoda is the master strategist of the Jedi Council. A life as vast as  his
predisposes one to see the big picture, and take the long view.  He  developed
our current strategy of limited engagement on multiple fronts; our goal is  to
harass the Separatists, wear them down in a war of  attrition,  chip  away  at
them and prevent them from consolidating their po sition. In this way, we hope
to gain time for  the  titanic  manufacturing  base  of  the  Republic  to  be
converted to the production of ships, weapons, and other war materiel.
     And time to train our troops. The Kaminoan clone troopers  are  not  only
the best soldiers we have, they are very nearly our only  soldiers.  We  would
use them to train civilian volunteers and law-enforcement personnel in weapons
and tactics, but the Separatists have managed to keep nearly all  1.2  million
of them fully engaged, rushing from system to system and planet to  planet  to
meet probing attacks from the bewildering  variety  of  war  droids  that  the
TechnoUnion, with the financial backing of the Trade Federation, turns out  in
seemingly unlimited quantities.
     Since we need all our clones simply to defend Republic systems,  we  have
been forced to find ways to attack without them.
     The Separatists don't enjoy unalloyed  popularity,  even  in  their  core
systems; and in any society, there are fringe elements eager to take  up  arms
against authority. Jedi have been covertly inserted  on  hundreds  of  worlds,
with a common mission: to organize Loyalist  resistance,  train  partisans  in
sabotage  and  guerrilla  warfare,  and  generally  do  whatever  possible  to
destabilize the Separatist governments.
     This was why Depa Billaba came to Haruun Kal.
     I sent her here.
     The Al'Har system-of which Haruun Kal is  the  sole  planet-lies  on  the
nexus of several hyperspace lanes: the hub of a wheel called the Gevarno Loop,
whose spokes join the Separatist systems of Killisu, Jutrand, Loposi, and  the
Gevarno Cluster with Opari, Ventran, and Ch'manss-all Loyalist. Due  to  local
stellar configurations and the mass sensitivities of modern  hyperdrives,  any
ship traveling from one of these systems to another can cut  several  standard
days off its journey by coming  through  Al'Har,  even  counting  the  daylong
realspace transit of the system itself.
     None of these systems has any vast strategic value-but the  Republic  has
lost too many systems to secession to risk losing any to conquest. Control  of
the Al 'Har nexus offers control of the whole  region.  It  was  decided  that
Haruun Kal is worth the Council's attention-and not solely  for  its  military
uses.
     In the Temple archives  are  reports  of  the  Jedi  anthropologists  who
studied the Korun tribes.They have a theory that a Jedi  spacecraft  may  have
made a forced landing there, perhaps thousands of years ago during the turmoil
of the Sith War, when so many Jedi were lost to  history.  There  are  several
varieties of fungi native to the jungles of Haruun Kal  that  eat  metals  and
silicates; a ship that could not lift off again immediately would be  grounded
forever, and comm equipment would be equally vulnerable. The ancestors of  the
Korunnai, the anthropologists believe, were these shipwrecked Jedi.
     This is their best explanation for a curious genetic fact:  all  Korunnai
can touch the Force.
     The true explanation may be simpler: we have to. Those who cannot use the
Force do not long survive. Humans can't live in those  jungles;  the  Korunnai
survive  by  following  their  grasser  herds.  Grassers,   great   six-limbed
behemoths, tear down the jungle with their forehands and massive  jaws.  Their
name comes from the grassy meadows that are left in their wake. It is in those
meadows that the Korunnai make their precarious lives.  The  grassers  protect
the Korunnai from the jungle; the Korunnai, in  turn-with  their  Force-bonded
companions, the fierce akk dogs-protect the grassers.
     When the Jedi anthropologists were ready to depart, they  had  asked  the
elders of ghosh Windu if they might take with them a child  to  train  in  the
Jedi arts, thus recovering the Force talents of  the  Korunnai  to  serve  the
peace of the galaxy.
     That would be me.
     I was an infant, an orphan, called by  the  name  of  my  ghosh,  for  my
parents had been taken by the jungle before my naming day. I  was  six  months
old. The choice was made for me.
     I've never minded.
     It is the Korunnai that  Depa  came  here  to  train  and  use  as  anti-
government partisans. The civil government of Haruun Kal is entirely  Balawai:
off-worlders and their descendants, beneficiaries of the  financial  interests
behind the thyssel bark trade. Government of the Balawai, by the Balawai,  and
for the Balawai.
     No Korun need apply.
     The government-and the planetary militia, their military  arm-joined  the
Confederacy of Independent Systems as a cynical dodge to  squelch  an  ongoing
Judicial Department investigation into their treatment of the  Korun  natives;
in exchange for the use of the capital's spaceport as a base to conduct repair
and refit for the Al'har fleet of droid starfighters, the Separatists provided
arms for the militia and turned a blind eye toward illegal Balawai  activities
in the Korunnai Highland.
     But since Depa arrived, the Separatists have  discovered  that  even  the
smallest bands of determined guerrillas  can  have  a  devastating  effect  on
military operations.
     Especially when all these guerrillas can touch the Force.
     This was a large part of Depa's argument for coming  here  in  the  first
place, and why she insisted on handling it personally. Untrained  Force  users
can be exceedingly dangerous; wild  talents  crop  up  unpredictably  in  such
populations. Depa's mastery  of  Vaapad  makes  her  virtually  unbeatable  in
personal combat, and her own cultural training-in  the  elegant  philosophico-
mystical disciplines of the Chalactan Adepts-makes her uniquely  resistant  to
all  forms  of  mental  manipulation,   from   Force-powered   suggestion   to
brainwashing by torture.
     I believe she may have also nursed  a  private  hope  that  some  of  the
Korunnai might be persuaded to enlist in the Grand Army  of  the  Republic;  a
cadre of Force-capable commandos could take a great deal of the  pressure  off
the Jedi and accomplish missions that no clone troopers could hope to survive.
     I suspect, too, that part of the  reason  she  insisted  on  taking  this
mission was sentimental: I think she came here because Haruun Kal is  where  I
was born.
     Though this world has never been my true home, I bear its stamp  to  this
day.
     The Korun culture is based on a simple premise, what they call  the  Four
Pillars: Honor, Duty, Family, Herd.
     The First  Pillar  is  Honor,  your  obligation  to  yourself.  Act  with
integrity. Speak the truth. Fight without fear. Love without reservation.
     Greater than this is the Second Pillar, Duty, your obligation to  others.
Do your job. Work hard. Obey the elders. Stand by your ghosh.
     Greater still is the Third Pillar, Family. Care for  your  parents.  Love
your spouse. Teach your children. Defend your blood.
     Greatest of all is the Fourth Pillar, Herd, for  it  is  on  the  grasser
herds that the life of the ghosh depends. Your family is more  important  than
your duty; your duty outweighs your honor. But nothing is more important  than
your herd. If the well-being of the herd requires the sacrifice of your honor,
you do it. If it requires that you shirk your duty, you do it.
     Whatever it takes.
     Even your family.
     Yoda once observed that-though I  left  Haruun  Kal  as  an  infant,  and
returned only once, as a youth, to train in  the  Korun  Force-bond  with  the
great akks-he thinks I have the Four Pillars in my veins along with  my  Korun
blood. He said that Honor and Duty are as natural to me as breathing, and that
the only real difference my Jedi training has  made  is  that  the  Jedi  have
become my Family, and the Republic itself is my Herd.
     This is flattering. I hope it might be true, but I don't have an  opinion
on the subject. I'm not interested in opinions. I'm interested in facts.
     This is a fact: I found the shatterpoint of the Gevarno Loop.
     Another fact: Depa volunteered to strike it.
     And another fact-
     That she said:,' have become the darkness in the jungle.
     The spaceport at Pelek Baw smelled clean. It wasn't.  Typical  back-world
port: filthy, disorganized, half  choked  with  rusted  remnants  of  disabled
ships.
     Mace stepped off the shuttle ramp and slung  his  kitbag  by  its  strap.
Smothering wet heat pricked sweat across his bare scalp. He  raised  his  eyes
from  the  ocher-scaled  junk  and  discarded  crumples  of  empty  nutripacks
scattered around the landing bay, up into the misty turquoise sky.
     The white crown of Grandfather's Shoulder  soared  above  the  city:  the
tallest mountain on the Korunnal Highland, an active volcano  with  dozens  of
open calderae. Mace remembered the taste of the snow at  the  tree  line,  the
thin cold air and the aromatic resins of the evergreen scrub below the summit.
     He had spent far too much of his life on Coruscant.
     If only he could have come here for some other reason.
     Any other reason.
     A straw-colored shimmer in the air around him explained the clean  smell:
a surgical sterilization field. He'd expected it. The spaceport had always had
a powered-up surgical field umbrella, to protect ships and equipment from  the
various native fungi that fed on metals and silicates; the  field  also  wiped
out the bacteria and molds that would otherwise have made the spaceport  smell
like an overloaded refresher.
     The  spaceport's  pro-biotic  showers  were  still  in  their  long,  low
blockhouse of mold-stained duracrete, but their  entrance  had  been  expanded
into a large temporary-looking office of injection-molded plastifoam,  with  a
foam-slab door that hung askew on half-sprung hinges. The  door  was  streaked
with rusty stains that had  dripped  from  the  fungus-chewed  durasteel  sign
above. The sign said CUSTOMS. Mace went in.
     Sunlight leaked  green  through  mold-tracked  windows.  Climate  control
wheezed a body-temperature breeze from ceiling vents,  and  the  smell  loudly
advertised that this place was well beyond the reach of the surgical field.
     Inside the customs office, enough flybuzz hummed to  get  the  two  Kubaz
chuckling and eagerly nudging each other. Mace didn't quite manage  to  ignore
the Pho Ph'eahian broadly explaining to a bored-looking human that  he'd  just
jumped in from Kashyyyk and boy, were his legs tired. The agent seemed to find
this about as tolerable as Mace did; he hurriedly passed the  comedians  along
after the pair of Kubaz, and they all disappeared into the shower blockhouse.
     Mace found a different customs agent:  a  Neimoidian  female  with  pink-
slitted eyes, cold-bloodedly sleepy in the heat. She looked over his identikit
incuriously. "Corellian, hnh? Purpose of your visit?"
     'Business."
     She sighed tiredly. "You'll need a better answer than that. Corellia's no
friend of the Confederacy."
     'Which would be why I'm doing business here."
     'Hnh. I scan you. Open your bag for inspection."
     Mace thought about the "old-fashioned glow rod" stashed in  his  bag.  He
wasn't sure how convincing its shell would be to Neimoidian eyes, which  could
see deep into the infrared.
     'I'd rather not."
     'Do I care? Open it." She squinted a dark pink eye up at him. "Hey,  nice
skin job. You could almost pass for a Korun."
     'Almost?"
     'You're too tall. And they mostly have hair. And anyway, Korunnai are all
Force freaks, yes? They have powers and stuff."
     'I have powers."
     'Yeah?"
     'Sure." Mace hooked his thumbs behind his belt. "I have the power to make
ten credits appear in your hand."
     The Neimoidian looked thoughtful. "That's a pretty good power. Let's  see
it."
     He passed his hand over the customs agent's desk, and  let  fall  a  coin
he'd palmed from his belt's slit pocket. The Neimoidian had powers of her own:
she made the coin disappear. "Not bad." She turned up her empty  hand.  "Let's
see it again."
     'Let's see my identikit validated and my bag passed."
     The Neimoidian shrugged and complied,  and  Mace  did  his  trick  again.
"Power like yours, you'll get along fine in Pelek Baw,"  she  said.  "Pleasure
doing business with you. Be sure to take your PB tabs. And see me on your  way
offworld. Ask for Pule."
     Til do that."
     Toward the back of the customs  office,  a  large  advertiscreen  advised
everyone entering Pelek Baw to use the probiotic showers  before  leaving  the
spaceport. The showers replaced beneficial skin flora that had been killed  by
the surgical field. This advice was supported with gruesomely graphic holos of
the wide  variety  of  fungal  infections  awaiting  unshowered  travelers.  A
dispenser beneath the screen offered half-credit doses of  tablets  guaranteed
to restore intestinal flora as well. Mace bought a few, took one, then stepped
into the shower blockhouse.
     The blockhouse had a smell all its own:  a  dark  musky  funk,  rich  and
organic. The showers themselves were simple  autonozzles  spraying  bacterium-
rich nutrient mist; they lined the walls of a thirty-meter walk-through.  Mace
stripped off his clothes and  stuffed  them  into  his  kitbag.  There  was  a
conveyor strip for possessions beside the walk-through entrance, but  he  held
on to the bag. A few germs wouldn't do it any harm.
     At the far end of the showers, he walked into a situation.
     The dressing station was loud with turbine-driven airjet dryers. The  two
Kubaz and the comedy team, still naked, milled uncertainly in  one  corner.  A
large surly-looking human in sunbleached  khakis  and  a  military  cap  stood
facing them, impressive arms folded across his equally  impressive  chest.  He
stared at the naked travelers with cold unspecific threat.
     A smaller human in identical clothing rummaged through their bags,  which
were piled behind the large man's legs. The smaller man had a bag of his  own,
into which he dropped anything small and valuable. Both men  had  stun  batons
dangling from belt loops, and blasters secured in snap-flap holsters.
     Mace nodded thoughtfully. The situation was clear enough. Based on who he
was supposed to be, he should just ignore this. But cover or not, he was still
a Jedi.
     The big one looked Mace over. Head to toe and back again. His  stare  had
the open insolence that came of being clothed and armed and facing someone who
was naked and dripping wet. "Here's another. Smart guy carried his own bag."
     The other rose and unlooped his stun baton. "Sure, smart guy. Let's  have
the bag. Inspection. Come on."
     Mace went still. Pro-bi mist condensed to rivulets and trickled down  his
bare skin. "I can read your mind," he said darkly. "You only have three ideas,
and all of them are wrong."
     'Huh?"
     STAR WARS: SHATTERPOINT
     Mace nipped up a thumb. "You think being armed and ruthless means you can
do whatever you want." He folded his thumb and flipped up his forefinger. "You
think nobody will stand up to you when they're  naked."  He  folded  that  one
again and flipped up the next. "And you think you're going to look  inside  my
bag."
     'Oh, he's a funny one." The smaller man spun his stun baton  and  stepped
toward him. "He's not just smart, he's funny."
     The big man moved to his flank. "Yeah, regular comedian."
     'The comedians are over there." Mace inclined his  head  toward  the  Pho
Ph'eahian and his Kitonak partner, naked and shivering in the corner. "See the
difference?"
     'Yeah?" The big man flexed big hands. "What are you supposed to be, then?
"
     'I'm a prophet." Mace lowered his voice as though sharing  a  secret.  "I
can see the future..."
     'Sure you can." He set his stubble-smeared jaw and showed  jagged  yellow
teeth. "What do you see?" "You," Mace said. "Bleeding."
     His expression might have been a smile if there  had  been  the  faintest
hint of warmth in his eyes. The big man suddenly  looked  less  confident.  In
this he could perhaps be  excused;  like  all  successful  predators,  he  was
interested only in victims. Certainly not in opponents. Which was the  purpose
of his particular racket, after all: members of any sapient species  who  were
culturally accustomed to wearing clothes would feel hesitant,  uncertain,  and
vulnerable when caught naked. Especially humans. Any normal person would  stop
to put on pants before throwing a punch.
     Mace Windu, in contrast, looked like he might  know  of  uncertainty  and
vulnerability by reputation, but had never met either of them face-to-face.
     One hundred eighty-eight  centimeters  of  muscle  and  bone.  Absolutely
still. Absolutely relaxed. From his attitude, the pro-bi  mist  that  trickled
down his naked skin  might  have  been  carbon-fiber-reinforced  ceramic  body
armor.
     'Do you have a move to make?" Mace said. "I'm in a hurry."
     The big man's gaze twitched sideways, and he said,  "Uh-?"  Mace  felt  a
pressure in the Force over his left kidney and heard the sizzle of a triggered
stun baton. He spun and caught the wrist of the smaller man with  both  hands,
shoving the baton's sparking corona well clear with a twist that  levered  his
face into the path of Mace's rising foot. The impact made a smack as  wet  and
meaty as the snap of bone. The big man bellowed and lunged and Mace stepped to
one side and whipcracked the smaller man's arm to spin  his  slackening  body.
Mace caught the small man's head in the palm of one hand and shoved it crisply
into the big man's nose.
     The two men skidded in a tangle on the  slippery,  damp  floor  and  went
down. The baton spat lightning as it skittered into a corner. The smaller  man
lay limp. The big man's eyes spurted tears and he sat  on  the  floor,  trying
with both hands to massage his smashed nose into shape. Blood  leaked  through
his fingers.
     Mace stood over him. "Told you."
     The big man didn't seem impressed. Mace shrugged. A prophet, it was said,
received no honor on his own world.
     Mace  dressed  silently  while  the  other  travelers   reclaimed   their
belongings. The big man made no  attempt  to  stop  them,  or  even  to  rise.
Presently the smaller man stirred, moaned, and opened his  eyes.  As  soon  as
they focused well enough to see Mace still in the dressing station, he  cursed
and clawed at his holster flap, struggling to free his blaster.
     Mace looked at him.
     The man decided his blaster was better off where it was.
     'You don't know how much trouble you're in," he muttered sullenly  as  he
settled back down on the floor, words blurred by his smashed  mouth.  He  drew
his knees up and wrapped his arms around  them.  "People  who  butch  up  with
capital militia don't live long around-"
     The big man interrupted him with a cuff on the back of  his  head.  "Shut
it."
     'Capital militia?" Mace understood now. His  face  settled  into  a  grim
mask, and he finished buckling down his holster. "You're the police."
     The Pho Ph'eahian mimed a pratfall. "You'd think  they'd  hire  cops  who
weren't so clumsy, eh?"
     'Oh, I dunno, Phootie," the Kitonak said in  a  characteristically  slow,
terminally relaxed voice. "They bounced real nice."
     Both  Kubaz  whirred  something  about  slippery  floors,   inappropriate
footwear, and unfortunate accidents.
     The cops scowled.
     Mace squatted in front of them. His right hand rested on  the  Power  5's
butt. "It'd be a shame if somebody had a blaster  malfunction,"  he  said.  "A
slip, a fall-sure, it's embarrassing. It hurts. But you'll get over  it  in  a
day or two. If somebody's blaster accidentally went off when  you  fell-?"  He
shrugged. "How long will it take you to get over being dead?"
     The smaller cop started to spit back something venomous. The  larger  one
interrupted him with another cuff. "We scan you," he growled. "Just go."
     Mace stood. "I remember when this was a nice town."
     He shouldered his  kitbag  and  walked  out  into  the  blazing  tropical
afternoon. He passed under a dented, rusty sign without looking up.
     The sign said: WELCOME TO PELEK BAW.
     Faces-
     Hard  faces.  Cold  faces.  Hungry,  or  drunk.   Hopeful.   Calculating.
Desperate.
     Street faces.
     Mace walked a pace behind and to the right of the  Republic  Intelligence
station boss, keeping his right hand near the Merr-Sonn's butt. Late at night,
the streets were still crowded. Haruun Kal had no moon; the streets  were  lit
with spill from taverns and outdoor cafes. Lightpoles-tall  hexagonal  pillars
of duracrete with glowstrips running up each face-stood  every  twenty  meters
along both sides of the street. Their pools  of  yellow  glow  bordered  black
shadow; to pass into one of the alley mouths was to be wiped from existence.
     The Intel station boss was a bulky, red-cheeked woman about
     Mace's age. She ran the Highland Green Washeteria, a thriving laundry and
public refresher station on  the  capital's  north  side.  She  never  stopped
talking. Mace hadn't started listening.
     The Force nudged him with threat in all directions: from  the  rumble  of
wheeled groundcars that careened at random through crowded streets to the  fan
of death sticks in a teenager's fist. Uniformed militia swaggered or  strutted
or sometimes just posed, puffed up with the fake-dangerous attitude  of  armed
amateurs. Holster flaps open. Blaster rifles propped against hipbones. He  saw
plenty of weapons waved, saw people  shoved,  saw  lots  of  intimidation  and
threatening looks and crude street-gang horseplay; he didn't see  much  actual
keeping of the peace. When a burst of blasterfire sang out a few blocks  away,
no one even looked around.
     But nearly everyone looked at Mace.
     Militia faces: human, or too close to call. Looking at Mace, seeing  only
a Korun in offworld clothes, their eyes  went  dead  cold.  Blank.  Measuring.
After a while, hostile eyes all look alike.
     Mace kept alert, and concentrated on projecting a powerful aura of  Don't
Mess With Me.
     He would have felt safer in the jungle.
     Street faces: drink-bloated moons of bust-outs mooching spare  change.  A
Wookiee gone gray from  nose  to  chest,  exhaustedly  straining  against  his
harness as he pulled a two-wheeled taxicart, fending off street kids with  one
hand while the other held on to  his  money  belt.  Jungle  prospector  faces:
fungus scars on their cheeks, weapons at their sides. Young  faces:  children,
younger than Depa had been  on  the  day  she  became  his  Padawan,  offering
trinkets to Mace at "special discounts" because they "liked his face."
     Many of them were Korunnai.
     FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU
     Sure. Come to the city. Life's  easy  in  the  city.  No  vine  cats.  No
driUmites. No brassvines or death hollows. No shoveling grasser  ma  nure,  no
hauling water, no tending akk pups. Plenty of money in the city. All you  have
to do is sell this, or endure that. What you're really  selling:  your  youth.
Your hope. Your future.
     Anyone with sympathy for the Separatist cause should spend a few days  in
Pelek Baw. Find out what the Confederacy is really fighting for.
     It's good that Jedi do not indulge in hate.
     The station boss's chatter somehow wandered onto the subject of the Intel
front she managed. Her name was Phloremirlla Tenk, "but call me Flor, sweetie.
Everybody does." Mace picked up the thread of her ramble.
     'Hey, everybody needs a shower once in a while. Why not get your  clothes
spiffed at the same time? So everybody comes here. I  get  jups,  kornos,  you
name it. I get militia and seppie brass-well, used to, till  the  pullback.  I
get everybody. I got a pool.  I  got  six  different  saunas.  I  got  private
showers-you can get water,  alcohol,  probi,  son-ics,  you  name  it-maybe  a
recorder or two to really  get  the  dirt  we  need.  Some  of  these  militia
officers, you'd be amazed what they fall to talking about, alone  in  a  steam
room. Know what I mean?"
     She was the chattiest spy he'd ever met. When she eventually stopped  for
breath, Mace told her so.
     'Yeah, funny, huh? How do you think I've survived this game  for  twenty-
three years? Talk as much as I do, it takes people longer to notice you  never
really say anything."
     Maybe she was nervous. Maybe she could smell the threat  that  smoked  in
those streets. Some people thought they could hold danger at bay by pretending
to be safe.
     'I got thirty-seven employees. Only five are Intel. Everybody  else  just
works there. Hah: I make twice the money off the Washeteria as  I  draw  after
twenty-three years in the service. Not that it's all that hard to do,  if  you
know what I mean. You know what an  RS-Seventeen  makes?  Pathetic.  Pathetic.
What's a Jedi make these days? Do they even pay you?  Not  enough,  I'll  bet.
They love that Service is its own reward junk,  don't  they?  Especially  when
it's other people's service. I'll just bet."
     She'd already assembled a team to take him upcountry. Six men with  heavy
weapons and an almost new steamcrawler. "They look a little rough, but they're
good boys, all of them. Freelancers, but solid. Years in  the  bush.  Two  are
full-blooded kornos. Good with the natives, you know?"
     For security reasons, she explained, she was  taking  him  to  meet  them
herself. "Sooner you're on your way, happier we'll both be. Right? Am I right?
Taxis are hopeless this time of day. Mind the gutter cookie-that stuff'll chew
right through your boots. Hey, watch it, creepo! Ever hear that peds have  the
right-of-way? Yeah? Well, your mother eats Hutt slime!" She stumped along  the
street, arms swinging. "Um, you know this Jedi of yours is wanted, right?  You
got a way to get her offworld?"
     What Mace had was the Halleck onstation in the Ventran system with twenty
armed landers and a regiment of clone troopers. What he said was, "Yes."
     A new round of blasterfire sang perhaps a block or two away, salted  with
staccato pops crisper than blaster hits. Flor instantly turned left and dodged
away up the street.
     'Whoops! This way-you want to keep clear of  those  little  rumbles,  you
know? Might just be  a  food  riot,  but  you  never  know.  Those  handclaps?
Slugthrowers, or I'm a Dug. Could be action by some of these  guerrillas  your
Jedi  runs-lots  of  the  kornos  carry  slugthrow-ers,  and   slugs   bounce.
Slugthrowers. I hate 'em. But they're easy to maintain.  Day  or  two  in  the
jungle and your blaster'll never fire again. A good slug rifle, keep 'em wiped
and oiled, they last forever. The guerrillas have pretty good luck with  them,
even though they take a lot of practice-slugs are ballistic, y'know. You  have
to plot the trajectory in your head. Shee, gimme a blaster anytime."
     A  new  note  joined  the  blasterfire:  a  deeper,   throatier   thrumm-
thrummmthrummthrumm. Mace scowled over his shoulder. That  was  some  kind  of
light repeater: a T-21, or maybe a Merr-Sonn Thunderbolt.
     Military hardware.
     'It would be good," he said, "if we could get off the street."
     While she assured him, "No, no, no, don't worry, these scuffles never add
up to much," he tried to calculate how fast he could dig his lightsaber out of
his kitbag.
     The firing intensified. Voices joined in: shouts and screams.  Anger  and
pain. It started to sound less like a riot, and more like  a  firefight.  Just
beyond the corner ahead, white-hot bolts flared past along  the  right-of-way.
More blasterfire zinged behind them. The firefight was overflowing, becoming a
flood that might surround them at any second. Mace  looked  back:  along  this
street he still could see only crowds and groundcars, but the militia  members
were starting to take an interest: checking weapons,  trotting  toward  alleys
and cross-streets. Flor said behind him, "See? Look at that. They're not  even
really aiming at anything. Now, we just nip across-"
     She was interrupted by a splattering thwop. Mace had heard that sound too
often: steam, superheated by a  high-energy  bolt,  exploding  through  living
flesh. A deep-tissue blaster hit.  He  turned  back  to  Flor  and  found  her
staggering in a drunken circle, painting the pavement with  her  blood.  Where
her left arm should have been was only a fist-sized  mass  of  ragged  tissue.
Where the rest of her arm was, he couldn't see.
     She said: "What? What?"
     He dived into the street. He rolled, coming up to slam her hip joint with
his shoulder. The impact folded her over  him;  he  lifted  her,  turned,  and
sprang back for the corner. Bright flares of blaster bolts bracketed invisible
sizzles and finger snaps of hypersonic slugs. He reached the meager  cover  of
the corner and laid her flat on the sidewalk, tucked close against the wall.
     'This isn't supposed to  happen."  Her  life  was  flooding  out  of  the
shattered stump of her shoulder.  Even  dying,  she  kept  talking.  A  blurry
murmur: "This isn't happening. It can't be happening. My-my arm-"
     In the Force, Mace could feel her  shredded  brachial  artery;  with  the
Force, he reached inside her shoulder to pinch it shut. The flood trickled  to
sluggish welling.
     'Take it easy." He propped her legs on his kitbag to help maintain  blood
pressure to her brain. "Try to stay calm. You can live through this."
     Boots clattered on permacrete  behind  him:  a  militia  squad  sprinting
toward them. "Help is on the way." He leaned closer. "I need  the  meet  point
and the recognition code for the team."
     'What? What are you talking about?"
     'Listen to me. Try to focus. Before you go into shock. Tell  me  where  I
can find the upcountry team, and the  recognition  code  so  we'll  know  each
other."
     'You don't-you don't understand-this isn't happening-"
     'Yes. It is. Focus. Lives depend on you. I need the meet  point  and  the
code."
     'But-but-you don't understand-"
     The militia behind him clattered to a stop. "You! Korno! Stand away  from
that woman!"
     He glanced back. Six of them. Firing stance. The lightpole at their backs
haloed black shadow across their faces. Plasma-charred muzzles stared at  him.
"This woman is wounded. Badly. Without medical attention, she will die."
     'You're no doctor," one said, and shot him.
     CAPITAL CRIMES
     H
     e had plenty of time to get familiar with the interrogation room.
     Four  meters  by  three.  Duracrete  blocks  flecked  with  gravel  whose
shearplanes glinted like mica. The walls from waist-high to ceiling  had  once
been painted the color of aged ivory. The floor and lower walls used to be the
green of wander-kelp. What was left of  both  paint  jobs  flaked  in  patches
rimmed with mildew.
     The binder chair that held him was in better condition. The clamps at his
wrists were cold and hard and had no weakness he could  touch;  those  at  his
ankles sliced pale gouges into the leather  of  his  boots.  The  chest  plate
barely let him breathe.
     No windows. One glowstrip cast soft yellow from the joining of  wall  and
ceiling. The other one was dead.
     The door was behind  him.  Twisting  to  watch  it  hurt  too  much.  The
durasteel table in the center of the room was dented and speckled with rust-he
thought it was rust. Hoped it was. On the far side of it was a  wooden  chair,
its bow back stripped from wear.
     His vest and shirt were tattered at the shoulder where the first bolt had
struck. The skin beneath was scorched and swollen with a black bruise. Set  on
stun, the bolt had barely penetrated his skin, but the concussive force of the
steam-burst still hit like a club. It had picked him  up  and  spun  him.  The
pounding in his skull implied that at least one shot had caught  the  side  of
his head. He didn't remember.
     He didn't remember anything between that first shot and waking up in this
binder chair.
     He waited.
     He waited a long time.
     He was thirsty. Uneasy pressure in his bladder somehow made his head hurt
worse.
     Studying the room and assessing his injuries could occupy only so much of
his time. Much of the rest of it, he spent replaying Flor's death.
     He knew she was dead. She had to be. She couldn't have lived more than  a
minute or two after the militia stunned him; without his Force-hold  to  pinch
off that brachial artery, she would have bled out in seconds. She  would  have
lain on that filthy sidewalk staring up at city-dimmed stars while the last of
her consciousness darkened, faded, and finally winked out.
     Again and again he heard that wet splattering thwop. Again and  again  he
carried her back under cover. And stopped her bleeding.  And  tried  to  speak
with her. And was shot by men he'd thought were coming to help.
     Her death had gotten inside him, down below his ribs. It ate  at  him:  a
tiny pool of infection that grew through the  hours  in  that  room  until  it
became a throbbing abscess. Pain and nausea and sweats. Chills.
     A fever of the mind.
     Not because he was responsible for her death. It ate at  him  because  he
wasn't.
     He'd had no idea she was about to walk into a  blaster  bolt.  The  Force
never offered the faintest hint of a  clue.  No  trace  of  a  bad  feeling-or
rather: no hint that all the bad feelings he'd had were about  to  add  up  to
something much, much worse. Nothing. Nothing at all. That's what sickened him.
What happens to a Jedi when he can no longer trust the Force?
     Was this what broke Depa?
     He shook that thought out of his skull. He drove his attention  into  his
visual field, focusing on cataloging the smallest detail of his prison.  Until
he could see for himself, he told himself solidly, he owed her the presumption
of innocence. Such doubts were unworthy of her. And  of  him.  But  they  kept
creeping back, no matter how hard he stared at the mildew-eaten paint  on  the
wall.
     ... I know you think I've gone mad. I haven't. What's happened to  me  is
worse.
     ... I've gone sane...
     He knew her. He knew her. To the marrow of her  bones.  Her  most  secret
heart. Her cherished dreams and faintest, foggiest hopes.  She  could  not  be
involved in massacres of civilians. Of children.
     ... nothing is more dangerous than a Jedi who's finally sane...
     She couldn't.
     But as seconds swelled to hours, the certainty in his head  went  hollow,
then desperate. Like he was trying to talk himself into something he knew  was
wrong.
     He felt the door behind him open. A damp breeze licked the  back  of  his
neck. Footsteps entered and clicked to one side, and he twisted to look:  they
belonged to a smallish human male, comfortably plump, wearing  militia  khakis
that were improbably well starched, considering the heat and the damp. The man
carried a snap-rim case covered in tanned animal hide. He brushed  a  wave  of
end-dampened hair the color of aluminum away from dark eyes, and offered  Mace
a pleasant smile. "No, please." He waved a hand toward the door. "Feel free to
have a look."
     Twisting farther, Mace could see down  the  corridor  behind  his  binder
chair. At the far end stood a pair of steady-looking militiamen  with  blaster
rifles aimed at his face.
     Mace frowned. An unusual position for guards.
     'Is this clear enough?" The man moved around Mace  to  the  table,  never
crossing their line of fire, and opened his animal-hide  bag.  "I'm  told  you
have a bit of a concussion. Let's not make it fatal, shall we?"
     The Force showed him a dozen places on that soft body where a single blow
would maim or kill. This man was no warrior. But energy spidered outward  from
him in all directions: an important man. Mace found no direct threat  in  him,
only a cheery pragmatism.
     'Not talkative? Don't blame you. Well. My name's  Geptun.  I'm  chief  of
security for the capital district. My friends call me Lorz. You  can  call  me
Colonel Geptun." He waited, still wearing that indifferently  pleasant  smile.
After a few seconds, he sighed. "Well. We know who  I  am.  And  we  know  who
you're not."
     He flipped open the lid of Mace's identikit. "You're not Kinsal Trappano.
I'm guessing not  Corellian,  either.  Interesting  history  you  don't  have.
Smuggler. Small-time pirate. Gunrunner. Et cetera and so  forth."  He  settled
into the wooden chair, laced his fingers together, and propped  his  hands  on
his belly. He watched Mace with that pleasant smile. Silently. Waiting for him
to say something.
     Mace could have kept him waiting for  days.  Without  Jedi  training,  no
human truly understands what patience is. But Depa was out  there.  Somewhere.
Doing something. The longer it took him to reach her, the more of it she might
do. He decided to talk.
     A small victory for him, Mace thought. No loss for me.
     'What am I charged with?"
     'That depends. What have you done?"
     'Officially."
     Geptun shrugged. "Nothing's been filed. Yet."
     'Then why am I being held?"
     'We're interrogating you."
     Mace raised an eyebrow.
     'Oh, yes. We  are."  Geptun  winked.  "We  are  indeed.  I'm  a  terrific
interrogator."
     'You haven't even asked me a question."
     Geptun smiled like a sleepy vine cat. "Questions are inefficient. In your
case, futile."
     'You must be good indeed," Mace said, "to have figured that  out  without
even asking one."
     By way of reply, Geptun reached into the animal-skin case and pulled  out
Mace's lightsaber.
     The glow rod shell had been stripped  away.  Traces  of  adhesive  showed
black against the metal. He hefted it in his hand, smiling. "And torture would
probably be a waste of time, too, yes?"
     He set the lightsaber on the table and spun it like a bottle. Mace  could
feel its whirl in the Force: feel exactly how to touch it with  his  mind,  to
lift it and trigger it and set it flashing upon Colonel  Geptun,  to  slay  or
hold hostage, or to slash through the restraints that held him in  the  binder
chair-
     He let it spin.
     The two shooters standing ready at the far end of the corridor made sense
to him now.
     His lightsaber's spin took on a wobble, slowed, and trickled to  a  stop,
its emitter centered on his breastbone. "I  believe  that  means  you're  It,"
Geptun said.
     A neat trick. Mace measured him again. The colonel endured  his  scrutiny
blandly. "Geptun," Mace said, "could be a Korun name."
     'And in  fact  it  is,"  the  colonel  admitted  cheerily.  "My  paternal
grandfather came out of the jungle some seventy-odd years ago.  This,  ah,  is
not discussed. You understand. Not in polite society."
     'Is that something you still have here? Polite society?"
     Geptun shrugged. "My name's only a mild handicap.  Maybe  that  trace  of
Korun blood is what makes me too proud to change it."
     Mace nodded, more to himself than to the other. If  the  man  had  enough
Force-touch to control the lightsaber's spin, he might easily have  enough  to
conceal his intentions.  Mace  revised  his  threat  assessment  from  Low  to
Unknown. "What do you want from me?"
     'Well. That's the real question, isn't it? There are a variety of  things
you could do for me. You could, say, be a substantial boost to  my  career.  A
Jedi? Even your basic Jedi grunt might be valuable, to  the  right  people.  I
mean, I've captured an enemy officer here, haven't I?  The  Confederacy  might
reward me handsomely for you. In fact, I know they would. And maybe even  give
me a medal." He tilted his head: a humorous sidelong  look.  "You  don't  seem
concerned by the possibility."
     If he were planning to turn Mace over to the Separatists, Geptun wouldn't
be here. Mace waited. Silently.
     'Ah, it's true," the colonel sighed after a moment. "I'm  not  political.
And there's something else you might be able to do for me."
     Mace kept waiting.
     'Well. I see it like this. Here I have  a  Jedi.  Probably  an  important
Jedi, since we caught him next  to  the  corpse  of  the  planetary  chief  of
Republic Intelligence." He winked at Mace again. "Oh, yes: Phloremirlla and  I
were old friends. Friends too long to let political differences  come  between
us, eh?"
     'I'm sure she'd be gratified by your obvious grief."
     Geptun took this without a blink. It didn't even dent his smile. "Tragic.
After so many years in so many dangerous places, to be cut  down  by  a  stray
blaster bolt. Collateral damage. Merely a bystander. Hardly innocent,  though,
was she?"
     It was possible, Mace reflected, that he might come to profoundly dislike
this man. "If your men hadn't shot me, she'd still be alive."
     He chuckled. "If my men hadn't shot you, I wouldn't have the pleasure  of
your company tonight."
     'And has this pleasure been worth your friend's life?"
     'That remains to be seen." Their gazes locked for a full second. Mace had
seen lizards with more expressive eyes. Predatory lizards.
     He revised his threat assessment again. Upward.
     Geptun shifted his weight like a man getting comfortable  after  a  large
meal. "So. Back to this Jedi in question.  I'm  thinking  this  Jedi  is  also
someone a little on the capable side. Even, perhaps, actively dangerous. Since
he answers the description of a fellow who broke several bones belonging to  a
pair of my best men."
     'Those were your best? I'm sorry."
     'So am I, Master Jedi. So am I. Well. I fell to wondering  what  business
might possibly bring an important, dangerous Jedi like yourself to our  little
backworld of Haruun Kal. You would hardly have come  so  far  just  to  commit
petty assault upon peace officers. I fell to wondering if your business  might
possibly have something to do with another Jedi. One who seems to  be  running
around upcoun-try, doing all  sorts  of  un-Jedi-ish  kinds  of  things.  Like
murdering civilians. Might your business have something to do with her?"
     'If it does?"
     Geptun tilted his chair back and looked at Mace over the  curves  of  his
plump cheeks. "We've been hunting this Jedi  for  some  time  now.  I've  even
posted a bounty. A big bounty. It's possible that if someone were to,  mm-deal
with-my existing Jedi problem, I might feel fully  compensated.  I  might  not
even miss that reward we were talking about earlier."
     "T w see.
     'Maybe you do. And maybe you don't. Here's the thing: I can't quite  make
up my mind."
     Mace waited.
     Geptun sighed irritably and settled his chair back on the floor.  "You're
not the easiest man to have a conversation with."
     This didn't call for a reply, so Mace didn't make one.
     'See? That's exactly what I'm talking about. Well. I suppose I just  need
a way to ease my mind, you understand? I'm right on the bubble, here: I can go
either way. I'd like that reward. Yes, indeed I would. But given  the  choice,
I'd prefer my, er, upcountry]z&i problem taken care of-but I'm not sure that's
the best decision I could make right now. For my  future.  I'm  wavering.  You
see? Teetering. I need a little reassurance. If you know what I mean?"
     Now Mace finally understood what  they  were  talking  about.  "How  much
reassurance do you need?"
     Geptun's eyes glinted the same flat  sheen  as  the  shearplanes  of  the
gravel in the walls. "Ten thousand."
     'I'll give you four."
     Geptun scowled at him. Mace stared back; his face might have been  carved
from stone.
     'I can keep you here a very long time-"
     Mace said, "Thirty-five hundred."
     'You insult me. What, am I not worth even haggling with?"
     'We are haggling. Thirty-two fifty."
     'I'm wounded, Master Jedi-"
     'You mean: Jedi Master," Mace said. "Three thousand."
     Geptun's face blackened, but  after  a  moment  wasted  trying  to  match
uncompromising stares with Mace Windu-a losing proposition-he shook  his  head
and shrugged again. "Three thousand. I
     suppose one must make allowances." He sighed. "There is a war  on,  after
all."
     They cut him loose at dawn.
     Mace descended the worn stone sweep of the Ministry  of  Justice's  front
steps.  The  high  cirrus  over  Grandfather's  Shoulder  bled  morning.   The
lightpoles had gone pale. The street below was as restlessly crowded as ever.
     He had his kitbag over his shoulder  and  his  blaster  strapped  to  his
thigh. His lightsaber was in an inside pocket of his vest, concealed below his
left arm.
     He slid into the crowd and let its current carry him along.
     Endless faces passed him, meeting his eyes incuriously  or  not  at  all.
Carts clattered. Music trickled from open doorways and  leaked  from  personal
players. Once in a while the massive rumble of steam-crawler treads forced the
crowds to one side or another; at such times the  touch  of  unfamiliar  flesh
made his skin crawl. The smell of human sweat mingled with  Yuzzem  urine  and
the musky funk of Togorians. He smelled the unmistakable tang of  t'landa  Til
elbow glands, and the smoke of portaak leaf roasting over lammas fires, and he
could only marvel dully at how alien it all was. Of course, the alien here was
Mace.
     He could not guess what he should do next.
     FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU
     I should have been working my way  toward  Depa  already.  I  could  have
headed for the Highland  Green  Washeteria,  to  make  new  contact  with  the
remaining Republic Intelligence agents onworld. I  could  have  hired  my  own
team:  though  the  bribe  to  Geptun  wiped  out  the   credit   account   of
"KinsalTrappano"-it never contains more than a few  thousand-that  account  is
monitored by the Jedi Council.  New  funds  would  be  added  as  required.  A
steamcrawler wouldn't be hard to come by, and the  streets  were  filled  with
dangerous-looking people who might be willing to hire on. I  could  have  done
any number of things.
     Instead, I drifted with the current of the crowds.
     I discovered that I was afraid. Afraid of making another mistake.
     It's an unfamiliar feeling. Not until Geonosis  did  I  truly  understand
that such a thing was even possible.
     At the Temple, we teach that the only true mistake a Jedi ever  makes  is
to fail to trust the Force. Jedi do not "figure things out" or "come up with a
plan." Such actions are the opposite of what being a Jedi means.  We  let  the
Force flow through us, and ride its currents to peace  and  justice.  Most  of
Jedi training involves learning to  trust  our  instincts,  our  feelings,  as
opposed to our intellects. A Jedi must learn  to  "unthink"  a  situation,  to
"unact": to become an empty vessel for the  Force  to  fill  with  wisdom  and
action. We feel the truth when we stop analyzing it. The Force acts through us
when we surrender all effort. A Jedi does not decide. A Jedi trusts.
     To put it another way: we are not trained to think.  We  are  trained  to
know.
     But at Geonosis, our knowing failed us all.
     Haruun Kal has already taught me that the tragedy of misjudgment that was
Geonosis was not an isolated event. It can happen again.
     Will happen again.
     I don't know how to stop it.
     To have come here alone made sense... but it was intellectual sense,  and
the intellect is a deceiver. To go after Depa myself  feels  right...  but  my
feelings can no longer be trusted. The shadow on the Force turns our instincts
against us.
     I didn't know what to do, and I didn't know how to decide what to do.
     There were instincts, though, that had little to do with  Jedi  training.
It was one of these Mace followed when he felt  a  Hey,  buddy  nudge  on  his
shoulder, and looked around to find no one there. The nudge had  come  through
the Force.
     He scanned a sea of faces and heads and  steamcrawler  smoke.  Limp  cafe
banners dripping in the moist air. A cart with a ragged mange-patched  grasser
in the traces. The driver flourished an elec-troprod. "Two creds, anywheres in
town. Two creds!" Nearby, a Yuzzem with alcohol-bleared eyes snarled.  He  was
harnessed to one of the two-wheeled taxicarts. He turned  in  the  traces  and
snatched a human out of the seat, holding him overhead in  one  enormous  hand
while the other displayed wickedly hooked  claws.  His  snarl  translated:  No
money? No problem. I'm hungry.
     Another nudge-
     Mace got a glimpse of him this time. The crowd made one of  those  smoke-
random rifts that let him see a hundred meters along  the  street:  a  slender
Korun half Mace's age or less, darker  skin,  wearing  the  brown  close-woven
tunic and pants of a jungle ghoshin. Mace caught a quick flash of white  teeth
and a hint of startling blue eyes and then the young Korun  turned  and  moved
away up the street.
     Those startling eyes-had Mace seen him before? On the  street  the  night
before, maybe: around the time of the riot...
     Mace went after him.
     He needed a direction. This one looked promising.
     The young Korun clearly wanted him to follow; each time the crowds  would
close between them and Mace would lose him, another Force-nudge would draw his
eyes.
     The crowds had their own pace. The faster Mace tried to  move,  the  more
resistance he met: elbows and shoulders and hips and  even  one  or  two  old-
fashioned straight-arms to the chest, accompanied by unfriendly assessments of
his walking manners and offers to fill that particular gap in  his  education.
To these, he responded with a simple "You don't want to fight  me."  He  never
bothered to emphasize this with the Force; the look in his eyes was enough.
     One  excitable  young  man  didn't  say  a  word,  deciding  instead   to
communicate with a wild overhand aimed at Mace's nose. Mace  gravely  inclined
his head as though offering a polite bow, and the young man's  fist  shattered
against the frontal bone of Mace's shaven skull. He briefly considered passing
along some friendly advice  to  the  excitable  youth  about  the  virtues  of
patience, nonviolence, and civilized behavior-or at least a mild  critique  of
the fellow's sloppy punch-but the agony on his face as he knelt, cradling  his
broken knuckles, put Mace in mind of one  of  Yoda's  maxims,  that  The  most
powerful lessons, without words are taught, so he only shrugged apologetically
and walked on.
     The pressure of the crowds brought his pursuit  up  against  the  law  of
diminishing returns: Mace couldn't gain on the young Korun without  attracting
even more attention and possibly injuring any number of insufficiently  polite
people. Sometimes when the Korun flicked a glance back, Mace thought he  might
detect a hint of a smile, but he was too far away to read it: was  that  smile
enouraging? Friendly? Merely polite? Malicious?
     Predatory?
     The Korun turned down a narrower, darker street, still shadowed with  the
lees of night. Here the crowds had given way to a pair of Yarkora sleeping off
their evening's debauchery arm in arm, perilously close to a  pool  of  vomit,
and three or four aging Balawai women  who  had  ventured  out  to  sweep  the
walkstones in front of their respective tenement doorways. Their morning  rite
of mutual griping broke down as Mace approached. They  clutched  their  brooms
possessively, adjusted the kerchiefs that bound whatever thin  hair  they  may
have had left, and watched him in silence.
     One of them spat near his feet as he passed.
     Instead of responding, he stopped. Now off the main streets and away from
the constant rumble of voice, foot, and wheel, he could hear a  new  sound  in
the morning, faint but crisp: a  thin,  sharp  hum  that  pulsed  irregularly,
bobbing like a cup on a lazy sea.
     Repulsorlift engine. Maybe more than one.
     Echoes  along  the  building-lined  street  made  the  sound  come   from
everywhere. But it wasn't getting louder. And when he got another  Force-nudge
from Smiley up the street and moved on, it didn't get fainter, either.
     On the opposite sides of the buildings around, he thought. Pacing me.
     Maybe swoops. Maybe speeder bikes. Not a  landspeeder:  a  land-speeder's
repulsorlifts hummed a single note. They didn't pulse as the vehicle bobbed.
     This was starting to come into focus.
     He followed Smiley through a maze of streets  that  twisted  and  forked.
Some were loud and thronged; most were quiet, giving out no more than muttered
conversation and the thutter of polymer cycle tires. Rooftops leaned overhead,
upper floors reaching for each other, eclipsing the morning into one thin  jag
of blue above permanent twilight.
     The twisting streets became tangled alleys. One more corner,  and  Smiley
was gone.
     Mace found himself in  a  tiny,  enclosed  courtyard  maybe  five  meters
square. Nothing within but massive trash bins overflowing with garbage.  Trash
chutes veined the blank faces of buildings around; the lowest windows were ten
meters up and webbed with wire. High above on the rim  of  a  rooftop,  Mace's
keen eyes picked out a scar of cleaner brick: Smiley must have gone fast up  a
rope, and pulled it up behind him, leaving no way for Mace to follow.
     In some languages, a place like this was called a dead end.
     A perfect place for a trap.
     Mace thought, Finally...
     He'd begun to wonder if they'd changed their minds.
     He stood in the courtyard, his back to the straight length of alley,  and
opened his mind.
     In the Force, they felt like energy fields.
     Four  spheres  of  cautious  malice  layered  with  anticipated   thrill:
expecting a successful hunt, but taking no chances. Two hung back at  the  far
mouth of the alley, to provide cover and  reserves.  The  other  two  advanced
silently with weapons leveled, going for the point-blank shot. Mace could feel
the aim points  of  their  weapons  skittering  hotly  across  his  skin  like
Aridusian lava beetles under his clothes.
     The repulsorlift hum sharpened and took on a direction: above  to  either
side. Speeder bikes, he guessed. His Force perception ex panded to  take  them
in as well: he felt the heightened threat of powerful  weapons  overhead,  and
swoops were rarely armed. One rider each. Out of sight over the  rims  of  the
buildings, they circled into position to provide crossing fire.
     This was about to get interesting.
     Mace felt only a warm  anticipation.  After  a  day  of  uncertainty  and
pretense, of holding on to his cover and offering  bribes  and  letting  thugs
walk  free,  he  was  looking  forward  to  doing  a  little  straightforward,
uncomplicated buttwhipping.
     But then he caught the tone of his own thoughts, and he sighed.
     No Jedi was perfect. All had flaws against  which  they  struggled  every
day. Mace's few personal flaws were well known to  every  Jedi  of  his  close
acquaintance; he made no secret of them. On  the  contrary:  it  was  part  of
Mace's particular greatness that he could freely acknowledge  his  weaknesses,
and was not afraid to ask for help in dealing with them.
     His applicable flaw, here: he liked  to  fight.  This,  in  a  Jedi,  was
especially dangerous.
     And Mace was an especially dangerous Jedi.
     With rigorous mental discipline, he squashed his anticipation and decided
to parley. Talking them out of attacking might  save  their  lives.  And  they
seemed to be professionals; perhaps he could simply pay for the information he
wanted.
     Instead of beating it out of them.
     As he reached his decision, the  men  behind  him  reached  their  range.
Professionals indeed: without a word, they leveled  their  weapons,  and  twin
packets of galvenned plasma streaked at his spine.
     In even the best-trained human shooter there is at least a quarter-second
delay between the decision to fire and the squeeze on the trigger. Deep in the
Force, Mace could feel their decision even before it was made:  an  echo  from
his future.
     Before their fingers could so much as twitch, he was moving.
     By the time the blaster bolts were a quarter of the way there,  Mace  had
whirled, the speed of his spin opening his vest. By the time  the  bolts  were
halfway there, the Force had snapped his lightsaber into his palm.  At  three-
quarters, his blade extended, and when the blaster bolts reached him they  met
not flesh and bone but a meter-long continuous cascade of vivid purple energy.
     Mace reflexively slapped the bolts back at the  shooters-but  instead  of
rebounding from his blade, the bolts splattered through it and grazed his ribs
and burst against a trash bin behind him so that  it  boomed  and  bucked  and
shivered like a cracked bell.
     Mace thought:,' might be in trouble after all.
     Before the thought could fully form in his  mind,  the  two  shooters  (a
distant, calculating part of Mace's brain filed that they were both human) had
flipped their weapons to autoburst. A  blinding  spray  of  bolts  filled  the
alleyway.
     Mace threw himself sideways, flipping in the  air;  a  bolt  clipped  his
shin, hammering his leg backward, turning his flip into a tumble, but he still
managed to land in a crouch behind the cover of the alleyway's  inner  corner.
He glanced at his leg: the bolt hadn't penetrated his boot leather.
     Stun setting, he thought. Professionals who want me alive.
     While he was trying to feel his way toward what they might try  next,  he
noticed that his blade cast a peculiarly pale light. Much too pale.
     Even as he crouched there, staring drop-jawed into the paling  shaft,  it
faded, flickered, and winked out.
     He thought: And this trouble I'm in just might be serious.
     His lightsaber was out of charge.
     'That's not possible," hz snarled. "It's not-"
     With a lurch in his gut, he got it.
     Geptun.
     Mace had underestimated him. Corrupt and greedy, yes.  Stupid?  Obviously
not.
     'T J'I"
     Jedi!
     A man's voice, from the alley: one of the shooters. "Let's  do  this  the
easy way, huh? Nobody has to get hurt." If only that were true, Mace thought.
     'We got all kinds of stuff out here, Jedi.  Not  just  blasters.  We  got
glop. We got Nytinite. We got stun nets."
     But they hadn't used any yet. Mercenaries,  Mace  decided.  Maybe  bounty
hunters. Not militia. Glop grenades and sleep gas were  expensive;  a  blaster
bolt cost almost nothing. So they were saving a few credits.
     They were also giving him time to think. And he was about  to  make  them
regret it.
     'You want to know what else we got?" Mace could hear his smirk. "Look up,
Jedi..."
     Over the roof rims above,  the  pair  of  speeder  bikes  bobbed  upward,
visored pilots skylining themselves against the blue. Their  forward  steering
vanes scattered mirror flashes of the  sunrise  across  the  courtyard  floor.
Their underslung blaster cannons bracketed Mace with plasma-scorched  muzzles.
He was completely exposed to their crossfire-but they weren't firing.
     Mace nodded to himself. They wanted him alive. A hit from  one  of  those
cannons and they'd have to pick up his body with shovels and a mop.
     But that didn't mean cannons were useless: a blast  from  the  lead  bike
shattered a chest-sized hunk of the baked-clay  wall  two  meters  above  him.
Chunks and slivers pounded him and slashed him and battered him to the ground.
     Heat trickled down his skin, and he smelled blood: he was cut.  The  rest
was too fresh to know how bad it might be. He scrambled through the rubble and
dived behind a trash bin. No help there: the speeder pilot blasted  the  bin's
far side and it slammed Mace hard enough to knock his wind out.
     Shot. Concussed. Cut. Battered. Bladeless.
     Haruun Kal was pounding him to pieces, and he hadn't been on-world even a
standard day.
     'All right!" He reached up and splayed his hands above the trash  bin  so
that the speeder pilots could see. He let  his  decharged  lightsaber  dangle,
thumb through its belt ring. "All right: I'm coming out. Don't shoot."
     The lead speeder drifted in a little as he worked his way out from behind
the bin, hands high. The other speeder hung back for high cover.  Mace  picked
his way to the alley mouth, took a deep  breath,  and  stepped  out  from  the
corner. The two shooters slowly uncovered: one from behind a trash bin and the
other stepping out from a recessed doorway. The  two  backups  stayed  at  the
corners of the alley's far mouth.
     'You're pretty good," Mace said. "Among the best I've ever seen."
     'Hey, thanks," one answered. From his  voice,  this  was  the  one  who'd
spoken earlier. The leader, then, most likely.
     His smile was less friendly than  his  tone.  He  and  his  partner  both
carried fold-stock blasters in the crooks of their arms. The men at the end of
the alley had over-under blaster rifles combined with  something  large  bore:
grenade launchers or wide-galvenned riot blasters. "Coming from  a  Jedi  like
you, I imagine that's high praise."
     'You certainly do come prepared."
     'Yup. Let's have that blaster, eh? Nice and easy."
     Slowly-very slowly-Mace switched his lightsaber to his left hand, inching
his right down toward the Power 5's butt. "I wish I could tell  you  how  many
times teams like yours have come after me. Not just in alleys. On the  street.
Caves. Cliffs. Freighter holds. Dry washes. You name it."
     'And now you're caught. Put the blaster on the ground and kick it  toward
my friend here."
     'Pirates. Bounty hunters.  Tribals.  Howlpacks."  Mace  might  have  been
reminiscing with old friends as  he  complied.  "Armed  with  everything  from
thermal detonators to stone axes. And sometimes just claws and teeth."
     The silent one bent down for the Power 5. His  blaster's  muzzle  dropped
out of line. Mace took a step to his left. Now the talker was in the  line  of
fire from the two behind him.
     Mace reached into the Force, and the alleyway crystallized around him:  a
web of shearplanes and stress  lines  and  vectors  of  motion.  It  became  a
gemstone with flaws and fractures that linked the talker and his partner,  the
two shooters at the far end, the speeder bikes and their pilots,  the  twenty-
meter-high buildings to either side-
     And Mace.
     No shatterpoint that he could see would get him out of this.
     Doesn't mean I wont, he thought. Just means it won't be easy. Or certain.
     Or even likely.
     He took one deep breath to compose himself.
     One breath was all it took. If the Force should bring death to him  here,
he was ready.
     'Now the lightsaber," the talker said.
     'You are better prepared than most." Mace balanced his lightsaber on  his
palm. "But like all those others, you've forgotten the only piece of equipment
that would actually do you any good."
     'Yeah? What's that?"
     Mace's voice went cold, and his eyes went colder. "An ambulance."
     The leader's smile tried to turn into a chuckle,  but  instead  it  faded
away: Mace's level stare was a humor-free zone.
     The leader hefted his blaster. "The lightsaber. Now."
     'Sure." Mace tossed it toward him. "Take it."
     His lightsaber tumbled through a long arc. In the Force he felt them  all
fractionally relax: the slightest easing  of  trigger  pressure:  the  tiniest
shift of adrenaline-charged concentration. They relaxed  because  he  was  now
unarmed.
     Because none of them understood what a lightsaber was.
     Mace had begun the construction of his lightsaber when  he  was  still  a
Padawan. On the day he first put hand to metal, he had dreamed that lightsaber
for three years already: had imagined it so completely that it existed in  his
mind, perfect  in  every  detail.  Its  construction  was  not  creation,  but
actualization: he took mental reality and made it physical. The thing of metal
and gemstone, of particle beam and power cell, was  only  an  expression;  his
real lightsaber was the one that existed only in the part of  the  Force  Mace
called his mind.
     A lightsaber was not a weapon. Weapons  might  be  taken,  or  destroyed.
Weapons were unitary entities. Many people even gave them names of their  own.
Mace would no more give a name to his lightsaber than he would to his hand. He
was not the boy who first imagined its shape, forty-one years before; nor  was
his lightsaber identical to that first image in the dreams of a  nine-year-old
boy. With each new step in his ever-deepening understanding of the  Force  and
his place in it, he had rebuilt his lightsaber. Remade it. It had grown  along
with him.
     His lightsaber reflected all he knew. All he believed.
     All he was.
     Which  was  why  it  required  no  effort,  no  thought,  to  seize   his
lightsaber's tumbling handgrip through the Force and fire it like a bullet.
     It screamed through the air and its butt took the talker between the eyes
with a hollow stone-on-wood whack.  The  impact  flipped  him  off  his  feet,
unconscious or dead before he  hit  the  ground.  His  hands  spasmed  on  the
blaster, and it gushed energy. Through the Force  Mace  nudged  the  blaster's
muzzle to sweep the talker's partner and blow him spinning to the ground; Mace
guided it farther upward, and hammering energy chewed an arc  of  chunks  from
the walls before it battered the steering vanes of the speeder bike above  and
behind him, smacking it into a spin that kept the pilot too busy hanging on to
even think about firing a weapon.
     The over-unders of the two at the alley mouth now coughed, but  Mace  was
already in motion: he Force-sprang at a slant and met the far wall five meters
up, then kicked higher and across to the opposite wall,  up  and  back  again,
zigzagging toward the rooftops through a storm of blasterfire.
     Belated grenades burst below: spit-white glop spewed  across  the  alley,
swirling the purple cloud of Nytinite anesthetic gas,  but  Mace  was  already
well above their effect zone. He sailed up over the lip of the flat baked-tile
roof and there were people up there-
     The roof was cluttered with  hods  full  of  tiles  and  pots  of  liquid
permacite and bundled tarpaulins that might have been keeping the winter rains
out-but now had become camouflage for at least two men.
     Lying concealed beneath the tarps, the men were invisible to the eye  but
Mace felt them in the Force: adrenaline shivers and the desperate self-control
it  took  to  remain  motionless.  Bystanders?  Roofers  caught  in  a  sudden
firefight, hiding for their lives? Reserves for the assault team?
     Mace was not certain he'd live to find out.
     Before he could touch down, the other speeder pilot cut off his path with
a fountain of blasterfire that traversed back to intercept him. A  shove  with
the Force dropped him short, but as he made contact with the roof,  the  pilot
fired an impact-fused grenade at Mace's feet. Mace reached out and  the  Force
slapped the grenade away from himself and the hidden  men,  but  the  cannon's
blast stream hammered a line of shattered  tiles  and  smoking  holes  in  the
rooftop straight at them.
     So he sprang toward it.
     An upward thrust with the Force lifted him over the blast stream, and  he
made his spring into a twisting dive-roll that brought him to  his  feet  with
his back to the massive communal chimney that rose  from  the  center  of  the
roof. The chimney shuddered with the impact of cannonfire  on  its  far  side.
Through the Force he felt the other speeder bike circling toward an open shot.
     Cannon holes in the roof, he thought. Those cannons left  shattered  gaps
big enough to dive through. If he could drop through one into the building-
     The chimney was only a meter taller than Mace was. He sprang to the  top.
Cannonfire blasted into its baked-clay wall,  tracking  up  toward  his  legs.
Before he could spot a roof hole big  enough  to  dive  through,  the  chimney
bucked and began to crumble.
     He clawed for his balance. A man shouted, "Hey, Windu!  Happy  name-day!"
and Mace got a glimpse of tarpaulins nipping back, and  blue  eyes  and  white
teeth, and something came tumbling toward him through the air-
     It was shaped vaguely like a cryoban grenade but when Mace  reached  into
the Force to slap it away, he recognized it: its feel was as familiar  as  the
sound of Yoda's voice.
     It was a lightsaber.
     It was Depa's lightsaber.
     Instead of slapping it away, Mace drew it toward him-and
     nixo. ouni
     through the Force hefelf her, felt Depa as though she stood at  his  side
and had taken his hand. Its grip smacked into his palm.
     In the green flash of Depa's blade, the situation looked different.
     The rest of the fight lasted less than five seconds.
     The speeder bike above opened fire again and Mace slipped  to  one  side,
letting the Force move the blade. Blaster bolts  ricocheted  from  the  energy
fountain and smashed the speeder's power cell, sending it flipping toward  the
ground within the alley's end. The blue-eyed Korun-Smiley, the one who had led
him here-and the other man who had  lain  beneath  the  tarp  held  rapid-fire
slugthrowers that they slipped over the roof rim to fill the alley below  with
a lethal swarm of bullets.
     Two more Korunnai popped out of cover on the rooftop  across  the  alley.
One had a slugthrower: flame leapt from its barrel.  The  other-a  big  light-
skinned Korun girl with reddish hair-stood  upright,  wide-legged,  a  massive
Mer-Sonn Thunderbolt tucked into her armpit, showering the alley with  howling
packets of galvenned particle beam.
     The other pilot didn't like the new odds: he power-slewed his speeder and
shrieked away above the rooftops. Smiley yanked his barrel around and took aim
at the pilot's back-but before he could fire, the speeder bike flipped in  the
air, tumbled out of control,  and  crashed  through  the  wall  of  a  distant
building at roughly two hundred kilometers an hour.
     Smiley waved a hand, and the Korunnai stopped firing.
     The sudden silence rang in Mace's ears.
     'Was that fun or what?" Smiley grinned at Mace,  and  winked.  "Come  on,
Windu: tell me that didn't warm your shorts a little."
     Mace dropped to  the  rooftop  and  angled  Depa's  blade  to  a  neutral
position. "Who are you?"
     'I'm the guy who just slipped your jiffies off  the  roaster.  Let's  go,
man. Militia'll be here any minute."
     The two Korunnai across the alley were already sliding down slender ropes
toward the ground. Smiley and his friend hooked grapnels that might have  been
made of polished brassvine over the lip of the roof and paid out  rope  below.
His friend slung his slug rifle and slipped over the edge.
     Mace scowled toward the column of smoke that now  rose  from  the  gaping
hole the second speeder bike had left in  the  building  blocks  away.  Smiley
caught his look and chuckled. "Love that fungus: ate his fly-by-wire. Saved me
a shot."
     Mace muttered, "I'm just hoping nobody was home."
     'Yeah, think of the mess." Smiley gave him that big white  grin.  "Forget
about identifying bodies, huh? Better to just hose it out."
     Mace looked at him. "I have a feeling," he said slowly, "that you  and  I
aren't going to be friends."
     'And that's got my heart pumping pondwater, let me tell you." Smiley took
a rope in his hands and beckoned. "On the double, Windu. What do you want,  an
invitation? Flowers and a box of candy?"
     The cascade of Depa's lightsaber highlighted both their faces  the  color
of sunlight in the jungle. "What I want," Mace told him, "is for you  to  tell
me what you were doing with this blade."
     'The lightsaber?" The blue in his eyes sparked with manic  fire.  "That's
my credentials," he said, and disappeared below the rim.
     JUNGLE TO JUNGLE
     M
     ace stood on the roof, staring into the emerald gleam  of  Depa's  blade.
Either she'd given it to Smiley, or he'd taken it off her corpse.  Mace  hoped
it was the former.
     At least, he thought he did.
     The Depa he knew-would she lend out her lightsaber? Would she  give  away
part of herself?
     Something told him it hadn't exactly been a Concordance of Fealty.
     After a few seconds, he released the activation plate. Her  blade  shrank
and vanished, leaving behind only a tang of ions in the air.  He  slipped  the
handgrip into the inner pocket of his vest. It didn't go in easily:  the  grip
was tacky with a thin layer of goo that had an herbaceous scent.
     Some kind of plant resin. Sticky, but it didn't come off on his hand.
     He shook his head, scowling at his palm. Then he  sighed.  And  shrugged.
Perhaps it was time he stopped expecting things on this planet to make sense.
     He leaned out over the roof rim. Four bodies below in the alley, plus the
pilot lying amid the wreckage of his speeder bike in the al ley.  Include  the
one who'd crashed into the building, and that was all of them.
     Smiley and the Korunnai were swiftly and efficiently looting the dead.
     Mace's jaw tightened. One of the dead-the talker, maybe-had a deep blood-
lipped gash from ear to ear.
     Someone had cut his throat.
     A sick weight gathered in Mace's chest. Some things did make sense  after
all, and the sense this made turned his stomach.
     The Force gave him no sign  of  guilt  from  any  of  them;  perhaps  the
violence here was so recent that its echoes washed away any  such  subtleties.
Or perhaps whichever of them had done this felt no guilt at all.
     And these killers were his best hope-perhaps his  only  hope-of  reaching
Depa.
     But he could not simply let this pass.
     Another lesson of Yoda's came to  mind:  When  all  choices  seem  wrong,
choose restraint.
     Mace slid down the rope.
     Smiley nodded him over. "You're a mess, you know that?  Take  that  shirt
off." He reached down to pull a medpac off a dead  man's  belt.  "There'll  be
spray bandage in here-"
     Mace took Smiley's upper arm with one hand. "You and I," he  said,  "need
to reestablish our relationship."
     'Hey-ow, huh?" Smiley tried to jerk free, and discovered that Mace's grip
would not suffer by comparison with a freighter's docking  claw:  trying  just
hurt his arm. "Hey!"
     'We got off on the wrong foot,"  Mace  said.  "We're  going  to  make  an
adjustment. Do you think we can manage this peacefully?"
     The other Korunnai looked  up  from  their  looting.  They  stood,  faces
darkening as they turned toward Mace  and  Smiley,  shifting  grips  on  their
weapons. Fingers slipped through trigger guards.
     'Bad idea," Mace said. "For everyone concerned."
     'Hey, easy on the arm, huh? I might need it again someday-"
     Mace's hand tightened. "Tell them what we're doing."
     'You want to lay off the bone-crushing grip?" Smiley's  voice  was  going
thin. Beads of sweat swelled across his upper lip. "What, you like my  arm  so
much you want to take it home with you?"
     'This isn't my bone-crushing grip. This is  my  don't-do-something-stupid
grip." Mace tightened it enough to draw a  squeak  of  pain  through  Smiley's
lips. "We'll graduate to bone-crushing in about ten seconds."
     'Um... when you put it that way..."
     'Tell them what we're doing."
     Smiley twisted his neck to look over his shoulder at the other  Korunnai.
"Hey,  you  kids  stand  down,  huh?"  he  said  weakly.  "We're  just...  uh,
reestablishing our relationship."
     'Peacefully."
     'Yeah, peacefully."
     The other three Korunnai let their weapons  dangle  from  their  shoulder
slings and went back to looting the bodies.
     Mace released him. Smiley massaged  his  arm,  looking  aggrieved.  "What
exactly is your malfunction, anyway?"
     'You didn't lead me into a trap. You used me to lead them into a trap."
     'Hey, Captain Obvious, news flash: this wasn't a trap."
     Mace frowned. "Then what would you call it?"
     'It was an ambush." Smiley smirked. "What, they don't teach Basic in Jedi
school?"
     'Do you know," Mace said, "that I disliked you the instant we met?"
     'Is that Jedi-speak for thank you so much for saving my lightsaber-waving
butt} Shee." He shook his head, mock-sad. "So what is it? What's your fuss?"
     'I would have liked," Mace told him solidly, "to have taken them alive."
     'What for?"
     In Pelek Baw, Mace reflected, that was a fair question. Turn them over to
the authorities? What authorities? Geptun? The cops who ran the strong-arm  at
the pro-bi showers? He took a deep breath. "For questioning."
     'Everything needing to know, you?" This came from the big red haired girl
with the Thunderbolt. She looked up at Mace, still crouched beside  a  corpse.
Her accent dripped high upland. "Are looking at it,  you.  Six  Balawai  scum.
Over and done. Never another Korun's home burn. Never another herd  slaughter,
never another child murder, never another woman-"
     She didn't finish, but Mace would read the final word  in  the  smoke  of
hate that clouded her eyes. He could feel it in the anger and  violation  that
pulsed from her into the Force. He could more than guess  what  she  had  been
through; in the Force, he could feel how it  had  made  her  feel:  sick  with
loathing, so wounded inside her heart that she could not allow herself to feel
at all. His face softened for an instant, but he hardened it  again.  He  knew
instinctively that she wanted no pity. She was no one's victim.
     If she saw how sorry he felt for her, she'd hate him for it.
     So, instead, he lowered his voice, speaking gently and  respectfully.  "I
see. My question, though: how are you certain that these men  have  done  such
things?"
     "Balawai, them." She said it as if she were spitting out a hunk of rotten
meat.
     These were the people Depa had sent for him? The sick weight in his chest
gathered mass.
     He stepped away from Smiley and opened his fingers toward his lightsaber,
where it lay beside the talker's throat-cut corpse. The decharged  grip  leapt
from the ground to his hand.
     'Listen to me. All of you."
     The simple authority in his voice drew their eyes and held them. He said,
"You will do no murder while I am in your company. Do you understand this?  If
you try, I will stop you. Failing that..."
     Muscle  bunched  along  his  jaw,  and  his  knuckles  whitened  on   his
lightsaber's handgrip. Smoldering threat burned the calm from his dark eyes.
     'Failing that," he said through his teeth, "I will avenge your victims."
     Smiley shook his head. "Urn, hello, huh? Maybe you haven't  noticed,  but
we're at war here. You get it?"
     A thin whistling in the  distance  swelled  to  become  a  shriek.  Other
whistles joined in, rising in pitch and volume both. Sirens: militia units  on
their way. Smiley turned to his companions. "That's the bell, kids. Saddle up.
"
     The Korunnai worked  faster,  stripping  the  corpses  of  medpacs,  food
squares, blaster gas cartridges. Credits. Boots.
     'You call it war," Mace said. "But these were not soldiers."
     'Maybe not. Sure got some nifty gear, though, don't they?" Smiley  picked
up one of the over-unders and  sighted  appreciatively  along  its  barrel.  "
Verrrry nice. How else are we gonna get stuff like this? It's  not  like  your
bloody Republic sends us any."
     'Is it worth their lives?"
     'Shee. Little judgmental, aren't we? Didn't we just slip your jiffies off
the roaster? A thanks wouldn't exactly be out of line-"
     'It was you," Mace replied grimly, "who put my jiffies' on  the  roaster.
And you took your time about slipping them off."
     Though the mockery stayed in his tone,  Smiley's  eyes  went  remote.  "I
don't know you, Windu. But I know who you're supposed to be. She  talks  about
you all the time. I know what you're supposed to be able to do. If they  could
have taken you-"
     'Yes?"
     His head flicked a centimeter to the right: a Korun shrug. "I would  have
let 'em. You coming, or what?"
     Pelek Baw rolled past the groundcar's tinted windows. The vehicle  bumped
along on large toroidal balloons  made  of  a  native  tree  resin,  and  used
laminated wooden bow slats as springs. The driver  was  local:  a  middle-aged
Korun with a web of cataract across one eye and bad  teeth  stained  red  from
chewing raw thyssel bark.  Mace  and  the  Korunnai  sat  behind  him  in  the
passenger cabin.
     Mace kept his head down, pretending to be engrossed in cobbling  together
an improvised adapter to recharge his lightsaber from looted blasterpacks.  It
didn't require all that much of his attention; his lightsaber was designed  to
be easily rechargeable. In an emer gency, he could even use the Force to  flip
a concealed lock on the inside of its hermetically  sealed  shell,  opening  a
hatch that would allow him to manually switch out the power cell. Instead,  he
laboriously wired up leads from the blasterpacks and pretended to study  their
charge monitors.
     Mostly, it was an excuse to keep his head down.
     The first thing the Korunnai did once they were on their way was  swiftly
and  efficiently  field-strip  the  captured  weapons,  despite  the   cramped
compartment and the jouncing ride. Mace guessed they  must've  had  plenty  of
practice. All exposed parts, they rubbed with chunks of a translucent  orange-
brown resin that Smiley said was portaak amber: a natural fungicide  that  the
ULF used to protect their weapons. This was the same  resin  that  coated  the
handgrip of Depa's lightsaber.
     Smiley passed Mace a chunk. "Better rub up  yours,  too.  And  you  might
consider getting yourself a knife. Maybe a slug pistol. Even with  the  amber,
powered weapons are unreliable here." He told Mace  to  keep  the  chunk,  and
shrugged off his thanks.
     Smiley's name was Nick Rostu. He'd introduced himself  in  the  groundcar
while he was spray-bandaging Mace's cuts and treating his bruises by a liberal
use of the stolen-captured-medpac. Mace recalled a ghosh Rostu that  had  been
loosely affiliated with ghosh Windu; that Nick had taken the Rostu name  meant
he must be nidosh: a clan child, an orphan. Like Mace.
     But not much like Mace.
     Unlike his companions, Nick spoke Basic without an accent.  And  he  knew
his way around the city. Probably why he seemed to be in charge. Mace gathered
from their conversation that Nick had spent much  of  his  childhood  here  in
Pelek Baw. After what he'd seen of the Korun children in this city, he refused
to let himself imagine what Nick's childhood must have been like.
     The big, emotionally ravaged girl they called Chalk. The other two looked
enough alike to be brothers. The older, whose  teeth  showed  scarlet  thyssel
stains, was called Lesh. The younger brother, Besh, never spoke.  A  knurl  of
scar joined the corner of his mouth to his right ear, and his  left  hand  was
missing its last three fingers.
     In the groundcar, they spoke  to  each  other  in  Koruun.  Eyes  on  his
lightsaber's handgrip, Mace gave no sign that he understood most of what  they
said; his Koruun  was  rusty-learned  thirty-five  standard  years  before-but
serviceable enough, and the Force offered understanding where his memory might
fail. Their chatter was mostly what he would expect from young people after  a
firefight: a mix of Did you see when I-? and  Wow,  I  really  thought  I  was
gonna-while they sorted through the adrenaline-charged chaos of  imagery  that
was inevitably the memory of battle.
     Chalk glanced at Mace from time to time. What's with Jedi  Rockface?  she
asked the others generally. I don't like him. He  looks  the  same  when  he's
cleaning his weapons as he did while he was using them. Makes me nervous.
     Nick shrugged at her. Would you be happier if he  was  like  Depa?  Count
your blessings. And mind your mouth: she said he spent some time  upcountry  a
few years ago. He might still speak some Koruun.
     Chalk's only response was a bleak silent scowl  that  twisted  in  Mace's
stomach like a knife. Like Depa...
     He burned to ask  what  Nick  had  meant  by  that-but  he  wouldn't.  He
couldn't. He couldn't ask them  about  Depa.  He  was  half  sick  with  dread
already, which was no state in which to meet his former  Padawan  and  examine
her mental and moral health; he would need as clear and open a mind as all his
Jedi training and discipline could produce. He couldn't risk contaminating his
perceptions with expectations or hopes or fears.
     They bounced and swayed through a part of town Mace didn't  recognize:  a
tangle of shabby stone housing blocks that rose from  a  scree  of  wood-frame
shanties. Though the streets were far less crowded here-the only foot  traffic
seemed to be  surly,  ragged-looking  men,  and  furtive  women  peering  from
doorways or clustered in nervous groups-the  groundcar  still  spent  valuable
minutes stopped at this corner and that bend and another angle, waiting in the
blare of the steam horn for the way to clear. They'd have made better time  in
an airspeeder, but Mace didn't suggest it; flying, on this world,  struck  him
as a chancy undertaking.
     Though he couldn't say for certain that it would be any more chancy  than
spending more time with these young  Korunnai.  They  worried  him;  they  had
enough Force-touch to be unpredictable, and enough savagery to be  dangerously
powerful.
     And then there was Nick, who was at best marginally sane.
     Back in the alley, standing among the corpses with  the  militia  on  the
way, Mace had asked where their transport was, and why they  weren't  hurrying
to meet it; he didn't want to get caught in another firefight.
     'Relax. Neither do they." Nick had smirked  at  him.  "What  d'you  think
those sirens are about? They're letting us know they're com ing."
     'They don't try to catch you?"
     'If they did, they'd have to fight us." He'd  stroked  his  long-barreled
slugthrower as though it were a pet. "Think they're gonna do that?"
     'I would."
     'Yeah, okay. But they're not Jedi."
     'I've noticed."
     Several of the weapons the Korunnai had left  on  the  ground.  Besh  had
picked up Mace's Power 5, frowned at it, then  shrugged  and  tossed  it  back
among the bodies. Mace had moved to retrieve it, and Nick had told him not  to
bother.
     'It's mine-"
     'It's junk," Nick countered. He picked it up. "Here, look."
     He'd pointed it at Mace's forehead and pulled the trigger.
     Mace managed not to flinch. Barely.
     A wisp of greenish smoke had trailed downward from the grip.
     Nick had shrugged and tossed the blaster back to the ground. "Fungus  got
it. Just like that second speeder  bike.  Some  of  those  circuits  are  only
nanometers thick; a few spores can eat right through
     > " em.
     'That," Mace had told him, "was not funny."
     'Not as funny as if I'd been wrong,  huh?"  Nick  chuckled.  "What's  the
matter, Windu? Depa says you got a great sense of humor."
     Through clenched teeth Mace said, "She must have been joking."
     In the car, he looked from one to another of the Korunnai. He could trust
none of them. Though he felt no malice from them, he'd felt none from  Geptun,
either. But he did feel knotted around them a strangling web of anger and fear
and pain.
     Korunnai were Force-users. But they'd  never  had  Jedi  training.  These
radiated darkness: as though they came  from  some  reversed  universe,  where
light is only a shadow cast by the darkness of the stars. Their anger and pain
beat against him in waves that triggered resonance harmonics in his own heart.
Without knowing it, they called to  emotions  that  Mace's  lifetime  of  Jedi
training was supposed to have buried.
     And those buried emotions were already stirring to answer...
     He recognized that he was in danger here. In ways deeper than the  merely
physical.
     Now, sitting in the groundcar, waiting for his  lightsaber  to  recharge,
Mace decided that he should get some things straight  with  these  four  young
Korunnai. And there'd never be a better time.
     'I think we'll all speak Basic now," Mace  said.  "Any  being  will  soon
enough tire of listening to conversation in a foreign tongue." Which  was  not
even a lie.
     Chalk gave him a dark look. "Here, Basic is foreign tongue."
     'Fair enough," Mace allowed. "Nonetheless: when I  am  in  your  company,
that is what we will speak."
     'Shee, pretty free with the orders, aren't we?  No  murder,  no  looting,
speak Basic..." Nick said. "Who said you're in charge? And if  we  don't  feel
like doing what we're told? What's it gonna  be,  Mister  There-Is-No-Emotion?
Harsh language?"
     'I am in charge," Mace said quietly.
     This was greeted with a round  of  half-pitying  sneers  and  snorts  and
shaken heads.
     Mace looked at Nick. "Do you doubt my ability to maintain a grip  on  the
situation?"
     'Oh, very funny," Nick said, massaging his arm.
     'I won't bore you with the complexities of chain of command," Mace  said.
"I'll stick to facts. Simple facts. Straightforward. Easy to understand.  Like
this one: Master Billaba sent you here to bring me to her." "Says who?"
     'If she wanted me dead, you'd have left me in that  alley.  She  wouldn't
have sent you to divert or ditch me. She knows  you're  not  good  enough  for
that." "Says you..."
     'You're under orders to deliver me."
     'Depa doesn't exactly give orders," Nick said. "It's more like, she  just
lets you know what she thinks you should do. And then you do it."
     Mace shrugged. "Do you intend to disappoint  her?"  The  uncertain  looks
they now exchanged drove that sick knife deeper into Mace's gut.  They  feared
her-or something to do with her-in a way that they  did  not  fear  him.  Nick
said, "So?"
     'So you need my cooperation." Mace checked the meter on the  blasterpack:
this one was depleted. He pulled the adapter out of  his  lightsaber's  charge
port.
     Nick sat forward, a dangerous glint sparking in his blue eyes. "Who  says
we need your cooperation? Who says we can't just pack you up and send you Jedi
Free Delivery?"
     Instead  of  hooking  in  the  next  blasterpack,   Mace   balanced   the
lightsaber's handgrip on his palm. "I do."
     Another glance made the rounds, and Mace felt swift currents  ripple  the
Force back and forth among  them.  The  brothers  blanched.  Chalk's  knuckles
whitened on the Thunderbolt. Nick's face went  perfectly  blank.  Their  hands
shifted on their rifles. Mace hefted the lightsaber. "Reconsider."
     He watched each of them mentally calculate the odds of bringing a  weapon
to bear in the cramped cabin before he could trigger his blade. "Your  chances
come in two shapes," he said. "Slim, and fat." "Okay." Nick  carefully  lifted
empty hands. "Okay, everybody. Stand down. Relax, huh? Shee, how  twitchy  are
we, huh? Listen, you need us, too, Windu-"
     "MasterWmdu."
     Nick blinked. "You're kidding, right?"
     'I worked very hard to gain that title, and I've worked  even  harder  to
deserve it. I prefer that you use it."
     'Urn, yeah. I was saying you need us, too. I mean, you're not from around
here."
     'I was born on the north slope of Grandfather's Shoulder."
     'Yeah, okay. Sure. I know: you're from here. But you're  still  not  from
here. You're from the galaxy." Nick's hands clutched as though he were  trying
to pull words from the air. "Depa says-you know what Depa says?"
     'Master Billaba."
     'Yeah, okay, sure. Whatever. Master Billaba  tries  to  explain  it  like
this. It's like, you live in the galaxy, y'know? The other galaxy."
     The other galaxy? Mace frowned. "Go on."
     'She says... she says that you-all of  you,  the  Jedi,  the  government,
everybody-you're, like, from the Galaxy of Peace. You're from the galaxy where
rules are rules, and almost everybody plays along. Haruun Kal, though, we're a
whole different place, y'know? It's like the laws of  physics  are  different.
Not opposite, not up is down or black is white. Nothing that  simple.  Just...
different. So when you come here, you expect things to work a certain way. But
they don't. Because things are different, here. You understand?"
     'I understand," Mace said heavily, "that you're not my  only  option  for
local guides. Republic Intelligence set up a team to take me up-country-"
     The looks exchanged among the Korunnai stopped Mace in mid-sentence. "You
know something about that upcountry team." It wasn't a question.
     'Upcountry team," Nick echoed derisively. "See, this is what I'm  talking
about. You just don't get it."
     'Don't get what?"
     Some of that manic glitter snuck back into his bright blue eyes. "Who  do
you think we left dead in that alley just now?"
     Mace stared.
     Nick showed him those gleaming teeth of his.
     Mace looked at Lesh. Lesh spread his hands. His thyssel-stained smile was
apologetic. "Does talk true, Nick: things are different, here."
     Besh shrugged, nodding.
     Mace looked at Chalk: at her eyes, incongruously dark in her fair-skinned
face; at the way she cradled the massive Merr-Sonn Thunderbolt on her  lap  as
though it were her child.
     And many things suddenly fell into place.
     'It was you," he said to her wonderingly. "You shot Phloremirrla Tenk."
     The blistering afternoon  sun  dissolved  the  departing  groundcar  into
heatshimmer and dust. Mace stood in the road and watched it go.
     This far from the capital, the road was little more than a pair  of  ruts
filled with crushed rock snaking through the hills. Green foliage striped  its
middle: the jungle reclaiming its own from the  center  out.  For  this  short
patch, the road paralleled the silver twist of Grandmother's Tears, a river of
snowmelt from Grandfather's Shoulder that joined with the Great Downrush a few
klicks from Pelek Baw. They were well above the capital now, on the  far  side
of the great mountain.
     Nick and the others were already  hiking  uphill  through  an  ankle-high
litter of bracken and scrub, weapons slung across their shoulders. The  living
wall of the jungle loomed twenty meters above. In the far distance, Mace could
just make out a segmented line of gray blotches: probably tame  grassers.  The
Balawai government used teams of the great beasts to  clear  the  jungle  back
from the road.
     'Master Windu-" Nick had stopped on the hillside above. He  beckoned  for
Mace to follow, and pointed at the sky. "Air patrols. We need to make the tree
line."
     But still Mace stood in the road. Still he watched dust rise and twist in
the groundcar's wake.
     Nick had said: You're from the Galaxy of Peace.
     And: things are different, here.
     A deep uneasiness coiled behind his ribs. Were he not a Jedi  and  immune
to such things, he might call it superstitious  dread.  An  unreasoning  fear:
that he had left the galaxy behind in the groundcar; that civilization  itself
was bouncing away down the road to Pelek Baw. Leaving him out here.
     Out here with the jungle.
     He could smell it.
     Perfume of heavy blooms, sap from broken branches, dust  from  the  road,
sulfur dioxide rolling down from  active  calderae  upslope  on  Grandfather's
Shoulder. Even the sunlight seemed to carry a scent out  here:  hot  iron  and
rot. And Mace himself.
     He could smell himself sweat.
     Sweat trickled the length of his arms. Sweat  beaded  on  his  scalp  and
trailed down his neck, across his chest, along his spine. The tatters  of  his
bloodstained shirt lay somewhere along the roadway, klicks behind. The leather
of his vest clung to his skin, already showing salt rings.
     He had begun to sweat before they'd even left the groundcar. He had begun
to sweat while Nick  explained  why  Republic-supported  partisans  under  the
command  of  a  Jedi  Master  had  murdered  the  station  boss  of   Republic
Intelligence.
     'Tenk's been playing  her  own  game  for  years  now,"  Nick  had  said.
"Upcountry team, my bloody saddle sores. You, Master Windu, were on  your  way
to a seppie Intel camp in the Gevarno Cluster. It goes  like  this.  One:  she
turns you over to the'team.'  Two:  the'team'  reports  an  'accident  in  the
jungle.' Your body's never recovered-because you're  getting  what's  left  of
your brains sucked out in a torture cell somewhere  in  Gevarno.  Three:  Tenk
retires to a resort world in the Confederacy of Independent Systems."
     Mace had been shaken. Too much of it made too much  sense.  But  when  he
asked what evidence Nick had of this, the young Korun had only shrugged. "This
isn't a court of law, Master Windu. It's a war."
     'So you murdered her."
     "You call it murder." Nick shrugged  again.  "I  call  it  slipping  your
jiffies-"
     'Off the roaster. I remember."
     'We've been waiting for you for days. Depa-Master  Billaba-described  you
to us and told us to watch for you at the  spaceport,  but  we  had  a  little
militia trouble and missed you. We didn't pick you up  again  until  you  were
coming out of the Washeteria with Tenk. And we almost lost you then, too-got a
little hung up in a food riot. Then before we could get to you, you managed to
get your Jedi butt stunned into next year. Fighting a pitched battle with  the
militia on an open street in Pelek  Baw  is  not  a  high-percentage  survival
tactic, if you know what I mean."
     'You couldn't have just warned me?"
     'Sure we could. Which woulda decloaked us to Tenk and her  Balawai  pals.
Gotten us killed for nothing. Because you wouldn't have believed us anyway."
     'I'm not sure I believe you now." Mace had turned his lightsaber over  in
his palm, feeling the unpleasant way the portaak amber gripped his skin. "It's
not lost on me that I  only  have  your  word  on  this.  Everyone  who  might
contradict your story is dead."
     'Yeah."
     'That doesn't seem to trouble you."
     'I'm used to it."
     Mace frowned. "I don't understand."
     'That's what war is," Nick said. His voice had lost its mocking edge, and
sounded almost kind. "It's like the jungle: by  the  time  the  Whatever-It-Is
that's moving through the trees out there is close enough that you can see for
sure what it is-or who it is-you're already dead. So you make your best guess.
Sometimes you're right, and you take out an enemy, or spare an ally. Sometimes
you're wrong. Then you die. Or you have to live with having killed a friend."
     He showed his teeth, but his  smile  had  no  warmth  left  in  it.  "And
sometimes you're right and you die  anyway.  Sometimes  your  friend  isn't  a
friend. You never know. You cant know."
     'I can. That's part of what being a Jedi is."
     Nick's smile had turned knowing. "Okay. Take your pick.  We're  murderers
who must be brought to justice. Or we're soldiers doing our duty. Either  way,
who else is gonna take you to De-uh, Master Billaba?"
     Mace growled, "This is not lost on me, either."
     'So what are you gonna do about it?"
     He and the others watched Mace think it over.
     And, in the end, the decision Mace reached surprised  none  of  them.  It
disappointed only himself.
     Nick had winked. "Welcome to Haruun Kal."
     Now the groundcar's dust plume slipped into a fold of the hills, and  was
gone.
     At the green wall above, Besh and Lesh  had  already  vanished  into  the
canopied shadow. Chalk and Nick waited for  him  just  below  the  tree  line,
crouched in the scrub, watching the sky. Outlined against the green.
     The wall of jungle was green only on the outside: between the leaves  and
trunks, among the fronds and flowers and vines, was shadow so thick that  from
out here under the brilliant sun, it looked entirely black.
     Mace thought, It's not too late to change my mind.
     He could leave Nick here. Could turn his back on Chalk and Besh and Lesh.
Hike along the road, catch a ride into Pelek Baw, hop a shuttle for  the  next
liner on the Gevarno Loop...
     He knew, somehow, that this was his last chance to walk away.  That  once
he crossed the green wall, the only way out would be through.
     He couldn't guess what he might find on the way-
     Except, possibly, Depa.
     ... you should never have sent me here. And I should never have come...
     It was too late to change his mind after all.
     He was in the jungle already.
     He'd walked into it from the shuttle in the Pelek  Baw  spaceport.  Maybe
from the balcony on Geonosis. Or maybe he'd been just standing still, and  the
jungle had grown around him before he'd noticed...
     Welcome to Haruun Kal.
     His boots crunched through the husks of  bracken  as  he  toiled  up  the
slope. Chalk nodded to him and vanished through the  wall.  Nick  gave  him  a
smile as if he knew what Mace had been thinking.
     'Better keep up,  Master  Windu.  Another  minute,  we  woulda  left  you
standing there. You want to be alone out here? I don't think so."
     He was right about that. "If we should happen to get separated, is  there
a landmark I should make for?"
     'Don't worry about it. Just keep up."
     'But if we do, how will I find you?"
     'You won't." Nick shook his head, smiling into the  jungle.  "If  we  get
separated, you won't live long enough to worry about finding us. You  get  it?
Keep up."
     He walked into the trees and was swallowed by the green twilight.
     Mace nodded to himself,  and  followed  Nick  into  the  shadows  without
looking back.
     THE SUMMERTIME WAR
     S
     ingle  file  through  the  jungle:  Chalk  picked  their  path,   parting
gleamfronds,  tipping  gripleaf  trailers  aside  with  the  muzzle   of   the
Thunderbolt. Mace followed perhaps ten meters back, with Nick close behind his
shoulder. Besh and Lesh brought up the rear together, switching positions from
time to time, covering each other.
     Mace had to look sharp to keep track of Chalk. Once they were  well  into
the jungle, he could no longer easily feel any of the Korunnai in  the  Force.
His gaze had a tendency to slip aside from them, to  pass  over  them  without
seeing unless he firmly directed his will: a useful talent in  a  place  where
humans were just another prey animal.
     Occasionally a Force-pulse as unmistakable as an upraised hand came  from
one or another of the Korunnai, and they would all stop in their tracks.  Then
seconds or minutes of stillness: listening to wind-rustle  and  animal  cries,
eyes searching among green shadow and greener light, reaching into  the  Force
through a riot of lives for-what? Vine cat? Militia  patrol?  Stobor?  Then  a
wave of relaxation clear as a sigh: some threat Mace could not see or feel had
passed, and they walked on.
     It was even hotter under the trees than in full sunlight. Any relief  due
to shade was canceled by the damp smothering stillness of the air. Though Mace
heard a constant ruffle of leaves and branches high above,  the  breeze  never
seemed to reach down through the canopy.
     They broke out into a gap, and Nick called  a  halt.  The  jungle  canopy
layered a roof above them, but the folds of ground here were clear for  dozens
of meters around, smooth gray-gold trunks of jungle trees  becoming  cathedral
buttresses supporting walls of leaf  and  vine.  Upslope,  a  spring-fed  pond
brimmed over into a steamy sulfur-scented stream.
     Chalk moved into the middle of  the  gap,  lowered  her  head,  and  went
entirely still. A Force wave passed out from her and  broke  across  Mace  and
thirty-five years fell away: for a delicious instant he was once  more  a  boy
returned to the company of ghosh Windu after a lifetime in  the  Jedi  Temple,
feeling for the first time the silken warmth of a  Korun's  Force-call  to  an
akk...
     Then it passed, and Mace was again a grown  man,  again  a  Jedi  Master,
tired and worried: frightened for his friend, his Order, and his Republic.
     Within minutes a crashing outside the gap heralded the arrival  of  large
beasts, and soon the jungle wall parted to admit a grasser. It  lumbered  into
the gap on its hind legs, its four anterior limbs occupied with  ripping  down
greenery and stuffing it into a mouth large enough to swallow Mace  whole.  It
chewed placidly, bovine contentment in all three of its eyes. It turned  these
eyes toward the humans one at a time: first the right, then the left, then the
crown, assuring itself that none of its three eyes spied a threat.
     Three more grassers tore their way into the gap. All four were  harnessed
for riding, the wide saddles cinched  above  and  below  their  foreshoulders,
exactly as Mace remembered. One wore a dual-saddle setup, the secondary saddle
slung reversed at the beast's mid-shoulder.
     All four grassers were thin, smaller than Mace remembered-the largest  of
them might not have topped six meters at full  stretch-and  their  gray  coats
were dull and coarse: a far cry from the sleek, glossy behemoths  he'd  ridden
all those years ago. This was as troubling as  anything  he'd  yet  seen.  Had
these Korunnai abandoned the Fourth Pillar?
     Nick reached up to take the knotted mounting  rope  of  the  dual-saddled
grasser. "Come on, Master Windu. You're riding with me."
     'Where are your akks?"
     'Around. Can't you feel them?"
     And now Mace could: a ring of predatory wariness outside the green walls:
savagery and hunger and devotion tangled into a semi-sentient knot  of  Let's-
Find-Something-to-Kill.
     Nick rope-walked up the flank of the grasser  and  slid  into  the  upper
saddle. "You'll see them if you need to see them. Let's hope you don't."
     'Is it no longer customary to introduce a guest to the akks of the ghosh?
"
     'You're not a guest, you're a package." Nick slid a brassvine goad out of
its holster beside the saddle. "Mount up. Let's get out of here."
     Without even understanding why he did it, Mace moved away into the middle
of the gap. One breath composed his mind. The next expressed his  nature  into
the Force around him: Jedi serenity balancing buried temper, devotion to peace
tipping the scales against a guilty pleasure in fighting. Nothing was  hidden,
here. Light and dark, pure and corrupt, hope, fear, pride,  and  humility:  he
offered up everything that made him who he was, with a friendly smile, lowered
eyes, and hands open at his sides. Then he sent rippling through the Force the
call he'd been taught thirty-five years before...
     And he got an answer.
     Slipping through the walls of the gap: measured tread blending seamlessly
with wind-rustle and flybuzz: horned reptoid heads questing, lidless oval eyes
of gleaming black-
     'Windu!" A hiss from Nick. "Don't move!"
     Triangular fangs scissored along each other  as  jaws  that  could  crush
durasteel worked and chewed. Steaming drool trailed down mouth folds of scaled
hide thick enough to stop a  lightsaber.  Splay-toed  feet  with  shovel-sized
claws churned kilos of dirt with every step. Muscular armored tails as long as
their landspeeder-sized bodies whipped sinuously back and forth.
     The akk dogs of Haruun Kal.
     Three of them.
     Nick hissed again. "Back up. Just  back  up.  Straight  toward  me.  Very
slowly. Don't show them your back. They're good dogs, but if you trigger their
hunt-kill instincts..."
     The beasts circled, switching tails that could break Mace in half.  Their
eyes, hard-shelled and lidless, glittered without  expression.  Their  breaths
all stank of old meat, and their hides gave off a leathery musk,  and  for  an
instant Mace was on the sand in the Circus Horrificus in  the  bowels  of  Nar
Shaddaa, surrounded by thousands of screaming  spectators,  at  the  mercy  of
Gargonn the Hutt-
     He understood now why he had done this. Why he'd had to.
     Because in that instant's vision of a long-ago arena,  Depa  was  at  his
side.
     Was that their last mission together? Could it be?
     It seemed so long ago...
     FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU
     I had come to Nar Shaddaa to track down exotic-animal smugglers  who  had
sold attack-trained akk dogs to the Red laro terrorists of Lannik-and Depa had
followed me to the Smugglers' Moon because she had suspected I might need  her
help. How right she was: even together, we barely survived. It was a  terrible
fight, against mutated giant akks for the amusement of the  Circus  Horrificus
patrons-
     But remembering it in the jungle, I found that my eyes filled with tears.
     On that day in Nar Shaddaa, she showed me blade work  that  surpassed  my
own; she had continued to grow and study and progress in Vaapad as well as the
Force.
     She made me so very proud...
     It had been years since she had passed her Trials of Knighthood; she  had
long been a Jedi Master, and a member of the Council; but for that one day, we
had again  been  Mace  and  Depa,  Master  and  Padawan,  pitting  the  lethal
efficiency of Vaapad against the worst the galaxy could throw at us. We fought
as we had so many times: a perfectly integrated unit, augmenting each  other's
strengths, countering each other's weaknesses, and on that day  it  seemed  we
should have never done anything else. As Jedi Knights, we were unbeatable.  As
Masters, members of the Council-
     What have we won? Anything?
     Or have we lost everything?
     How is it that our generation came to be the first in a thousand years to
see our Republic shattered by war?
     'Windu!" Nick urgently hissed Mace back to the present.
     Mace lifted his head. Nick stared down at him from three meters above the
jungle floor. "Don't just stand there!"
     'All right."
     Mace lifted his hands, and all three akk dogs lay down. A  touch  of  the
Force and a turn of both palms, and the three dogs rolled  onto  their  backs,
black tongues lolling to the  side  between  razor-sharp  teeth.  They  panted
happily, gazing at him with absolute trust.
     Nick said something about dipping himself in tusker poop.
     Mace moved to one dog's head, sliding the palm of his  hand  between  the
triangle that six vestigial horns formed on the akk's brow. His other hand  he
placed just beside the akk's lower lip, so that  the  creature's  huge  tongue
could flick Mace's scent into the olfactory pits beside his nostrils. He moved
from one to the next, and then to the last; they took his scent, and  he  took
their Force-feel. With the severe formality  such  solemn  occasions  demanded
they respectfully learned each other.
     Magnificent creatures. So different from the mutant giants that Depa  and
he had fought in the Circus Horrificus. In the fetid depths  of  Nar  Shaddaa,
Gargonn had taken noble defenders of the herd and twisted  them  into  vicious
slaughterers-
     And Mace could not help but wonder if something on Haruun Kal might  have
done the same to Depa. "All right," he said, to  everyone  and  no  one.  "I'm
ready to go."
     Every night, they made a cold camp: no fire, and no  need  for  one.  The
akks would keep predators at bay, and the Korunnai did not mind the  darkness.
Though militia gunships did not fly at  night,  a  campfire  was  sufficiently
hotter than the surrounding jungle that it  could  be  detected  by  satellite
sensors; Nick explained dryly that you  never  knew  when  the  Balawai  might
decide to drop a DOKAW on your head.
     He said that  the  government  still  had  an  unknown  number  of  DOKAW
platforms in orbit; the De-Orbiting  Kinetic  Anti-emplacement  Weapons  were,
basically,  just  missile-sized  rods  of  solid  durasteel  with  rudimentary
guidance and control systems, set in orbit around the planet.  Cheap  to  make
and easy to use: a simple command to the DOKAW's thrusters would kick it  into
the atmosphere on a course to strike any fixed-position coordinates.
     Not too accurate, but then it didn't have to be: a  meteorite  strike  on
demand.
     For the Korunnai, campfires were a thing of the past.
     Many of the nocturnal insects signaled each other with light, making  the
night sparkle like a crowded starfield, and the different kinds  of  glowvines
were mildly phosphorescent in  varying  colors;  they  combined  into  a  pale
general illumination not unlike faint moonlight.
     The grassers  always  slept  standing,  all  six  of  their  legs  locked
straight, eyes closed, still reflexively chewing.
     The Korunnai had bedrolls lashed to their saddles.  Mace  used  a  wallet
tent he kept in a side pocket of his kitbag; once he split the  pressure  seal
with his thumbnail, its internally articulated ribs would automatically unfold
a transparent skin to make a shelter large enough for two people.
     They would sit or kneel on the ground, sharing their meals: once the food
squares and candy they'd looted from the dead men ran out, their meals  became
strips of smoked grasser meat and  a  hard  cave-aged  cheese  made  from  raw
grasser milk. Their water came from funnel plants, when they could find  them:
waxy orange leaves that wrapped themselves in a watertight spiral  two  meters
high, trapping rainwater to  keep  the  plants'  shallow  root  system  moist.
Otherwise, they filled their canteens from warm streams  or  bubbling  springs
that Chalk occasionally tasted and pronounced safe to drink;  even  the  ionic
autosterilyzer in Mace's canteen couldn't remove the faint rotten-egg taste of
sulfur.
     After they ate, Lesh would often pull a soft roll  of  raw  thyssel  bark
from his pack and offer it around. Nick and Mace always refused.  Chalk  might
take a little, Besh a little more. Lesh would use his belt knife to carve  off
a hunk the size of three doubled fingers and stuff it into his mouth.  Roasted
and refined for sale, thyssel was a mildly  stimulating  intoxicant,  no  more
harmful than sweet wine; raw, it was potent enough to cause permanent  changes
in brain chemistry. A minute of chewing would pop sweat across Lesh's brow and
give his eyes a glassy haze, if there was enough vinelight to see it by.
     Mace learned a great deal about these young Korunnai-and, by implication,
about the ULF-during these nights in camp. Nick was the leader of this  little
band, but not by any reason of rank. They didn't seem to have ranks. Nick  led
by force of personality, and by lightning use of his acid wit, like  a  jester
in control of a royal court.
     He didn't talk of himself as a soldier, much less a patriot;  he  claimed
his highest ambition was to be a mercenary. He wasn't in this war to save  the
world for the Korunnai. He was  in  it,  he  insisted,  for  the  credits.  He
constantly talked about how he was getting ready to "blow this bloody  jungle.
Out there in the galaxy, there's real credits to be made."  It  was  clear  to
Mace, though, that this was just a pose: a way to keep his companions at arm's
length, a way to pretend he didn't really care.
     Mace could see that he cared all too much.
     Lesh and Besh were in the war from stark hatred of the Balawai. A  couple
of years before, Besh had been kidnapped by jungle  prospectors.  His  missing
fingers had been cut off, one at a time, by  the  Balawai,  to  force  him  to
answer questions about the location of a supposed  treasure  grove  of  lammas
trees. When he could not answer these questions-in fact,  the  treasure  grove
was only a myth-they assumed he was just stubborn. "If you won't  answer  us,"
one had said, "we'll make sure you never answer anyone else, either."
     Besh never spoke because he couldn't. The Balawai had cut out his tongue.
     He communicated by a combination of simple signs and  an  extraordinarily
expressive Force projection of his emotions and attitudes; in  many  ways,  he
was the most eloquent of the group.
     Chalk proved a surprise to  Mace;  guessing  what  he  had  of  what  had
happened to her, he'd expected that she would be fighting out  of  a  personal
vendetta not unlike Lesh and Besh. On the contrary: even  before  joining  the
ULF, she and some members of her ghosh had hunted down the men who'd  molested
her-a five-man squad of regular militia, and their noncom-and given  them  the
traditional Koran punishment for such crimes. This was called tan  pel'trokal,
which roughly translated as "jungle justice." The guilty men  were  kidnapped,
spirited away a hundred kilometers from the nearest settlement, then  stripped
of equipment, clothing, food. Everything. And released.
     Naked. In the jungle.
     Very, very few men had ever survived tan pel'trokal. These didn't.
     So Chalk did not fight for revenge; in her own words,  "Tough  girl,  me.
Big. Strong. Good fighter. Didn't want to be. Had to be. How I  lived  through
what they did, me. Fought, me. Never stopped fighting. And lived  through  it.
Now I fight so other girls don't have to fight. Get to  be  girls,  them.  You
follow? Only two ways to stop me: kill me, or show me no girls have to fight."
     Mace understood. No one should have to be that tough.
     'I am impressed by how you move through the jungle,"  Mace  said  to  her
once, in one of these cold camps. "It's not easy to see you even when  I  know
you're there. Even your grasser is hard to track."
     She grunted, chewing bark. Her dismissive shrug was about  as  casual  as
Mace's question. That is: not very.
     'That's an interesting way of using-"  He  dredged  from  the  depths  of
thirty-five-year-old memory the Koruun word for the Force. Pelekotan: roughly,
"world-power." "-pelekotan. Is this something you've always been able to do?"
     What Mace was really asking-what he was afraid to ask outright: Did  Depa
teach you that?
     If she was teaching Jedi skills to people who were too old to learn  Jedi
discipline... people with no defense against the dark side...
     'You don't use pelekotan," Chalk said. "'Pelekotan uses you."
     This was not a comforting answer.
     Mace recalled that the  strict,  literal  translation  of  the  word  was
"jungle-mind."
     He discovered that he didn't really want to think about it. In his  head,
he kept hearing:...' have become the darkness in the jungle...
     The grasser's lumbering pace was smooth  and  soothing;  to  make  better
time, it walked on both hind and midlimbs. This put its back at such an  angle
that Mace's rear-facing saddle let him recline somewhat, his shoulders resting
on the grasser's broad, smooth spine, while Nick rode the foreshoulder saddle,
peering over the top of its head.
     These long, rocking rides through the jungle  struck  Mace  with  a  deep
uneasiness. Facing only backward, he could never see what was ahead, only what
they had already passed; and even that had meanings he  could  not  penetrate.
Much of what he looked at, he could not be wholly sure  if  it  was  plant  or
animal,  poisonous,  predatory,  harmless,  beneficial-perhaps  even  sentient
enough to have a moral nature of its own, good or evil...
     He had a queasy feeling that these rides were symbolic of the war itself,
for him. He was backing into it. Even in the full light of day, he had no clue
what was coming, and no real understanding of what had passed.  Utterly  lost.
Darkness would only make it worse.
     He hoped he was wrong. Symbols are slippery.
     Uncertain...
     During the day, he saw the akk dogs in glimpses through the  jun  gle  as
they ranged the rugged terrain around. They went before and behind, patrolling
to guard the others from jungle predators, of which  these  jungles  hid  many
that were large enough to kill a grasser. The three akks were bonded to  Besh,
Lesh, and Chalk. Nick had no akk of his own. "Hey, growing up on  the  streets
of Pelek Baw, what would I do with an akk? What would I feed it, people?  Heh,
well, actually, now that I think about it-"
     'You could find one now," Mace said. "You have the power; I've  felt  it.
You could have a Force-bonded companion like your friends do."
     'Are you kidding? I'm too young for that kind of commitment."
     'Really?"
     'Shee. Worse than being married."
     Mace said distantly, "I wouldn't know."
     Mace would often get drowsy from the heat and the grasser's smooth  gait.
What little sleep he got at night was plagued by feverish dreams, indistinctly
menacing and violent. The first morning after he'd triggered his wallet tent's
autofold and tucked it back into its hand-sized pocket in his kitbag, Nick had
heard his sigh and saw him rub his bleary eyes.
     'Nobody sleeps well out here," he'd told Mace with a dry chuckle. "You'll
get used to it."
     Day travel was a dreamlike flow from jungle gloom to  brilliant  sun  and
back again as they crossed grasser roads: the winding strips  of  open  meadow
left behind by grasser herds as they ate their way through the  jungle.  These
were often the only times he'd see Chalk and Besh and  Lesh,  their  grassers,
and their akks. Using the akk dogs to keep in contact, they could  spread  out
for safety.
     Open air was the only relief they  got  from  the  insects:  it  was  the
territory of dozens of species  of  lightning-fast  insectivorous  birds.  The
dogflies and pinch beetles and all the varieties of wasp and  bee  and  hornet
stuck mostly to the relative safety of shade. Mace's skin was a mass of  bites
and stings that required considerable exercise of  Jedi  discipline  to  avoid
scratching.
     The Korunnai occasionally used juices from a couple of different kinds of
crushed leaves to treat particularly nasty or dangerous stings, but in general
they seemed not to really notice them, in the way a person rarely notices  the
way boots unnaturally constrict toes. They'd had a lifetime to get used to it.
     Though they could have moved  faster  by  following  the  grasser  roads,
frequent overflights by militia gunships made that too  risky:  Nick  informed
him that people riding grassers were shot on sight. Every  hour  or  two,  the
akks gave warning of approaching gunships; their keen ears could pick  up  the
hum of repulsorlifts from more than a kilometer  away,  despite  the  jungle's
constant buzz and rustle, whir and screech, and even the  distant  thunder  of
the occasional minor volcanic eruption.
     Mace got enough glimpses of these gunships  to  have  an  idea  of  their
capabilities.  They  looked  to  be  customized  versions  of  ancient  Sienar
Turbostorms:  blastboats  retrofitted  for  atmospheric  close-assault   work.
Relatively slow but  heavily  armored,  bristling  with  cannons  and  missile
launchers, large enough to transport a platoon of heavy infantry. They  seemed
to travel in threes. The militia's ability to maintain air patrols despite the
metal-eating fungi and molds was explained by the straw-colored  shimmer  that
haloed them as they flew; each gunship was  large  enough  to  carry  its  own
surgical field generator.
     From the height of the brush and young trees on the  grasser  roads,  the
most recent ones they crossed seemed to be at  least  two  or  three  standard
years old. Mace mentioned this to Nick.
     He grunted grimly. "Yeah. They don't only shoot us, y'know. When  Balawai
gunners get bored, they start blasting grasser herds. Just for fun. It's  been
a couple of years since we've been stupid enough to gather more than  four  or
five grassers in any one place. And even then we have to use akks to keep them
separated enough that they don't make easy targets."
     Mace frowned. Without constant contact and  interaction  with  others  of
their kind, grassers could become depressed,  sick-sometimes  even  psychotic.
"This is how you care for your herds?"
     Though he couldn't see Nick's face, he could hear the look on it. "Got  a
better idea?"
     Beyond winning the war, Mace had to admit he did not.
     Something else bothered him: Nick had said a couple of years-but the  war
had begun only a few months before. When he mentioned this, Nick replied  with
a derisive snort.
     "Your war began a few months ago. Ours has been going since before I  was
born."
     So began Mace's lesson in the Summertime War.
     Nick wasn't sure how it started; he seemed to think it was an  inevitable
collision  of  lifestyles.  The  Korunnai  followed  their  herds.  The  herds
destroyed the hostile  jungle.  The  destruction  of  the  jungle  made  Korun
survival possible: keeping down the drillmites,  and  the  buzzworms  and  the
gripleaf and vine cats and the million other ways the jungle  had  to  kill  a
being.
     The Balawai, by contrast, harvested the jungle: they needed it intact, to
promote the growth of all the spices and woods and  exotic  plant  extractives
that were the foundation of Haruun Kal's entire civilized economy-and grassers
were especially partial to thyssel bark and portaak leaf.
     Korun guerrillas had been fighting Balawai militia units in these jungles
for almost thirty years.
     Nick thought it probably started with some  bust-outs-jungle  prospectors
down on their luck-deciding to blame their bad  luck  on  Korunnai  and  their
grassers. He guessed these jups got liquored up and decided to go on a grasser
hunt. And he guessed that after they wiped out the herd of some unlucky ghosh,
the  men  of  the  ghosh  discovered  that  the  Balawai  authorities  weren't
interested in investigating the deaths of mere animals. So the  ghosh  decided
they might go on a hunt themselves: a Balawai hunt.
     'Why shouldn't they? They had nothing left to  lose,"  Nick  said.  "With
their herds slaughtered, their ghosh was finished anyway."
     Sporadic raids had gone back and forth for decades. The Korunnai Highland
was a big place. The bloodshed might die down for years at a time, but then  a
series of provocations from one side or the other would inevitably spark a new
flare-up. Korun children were raised to hate the Balawai; Balawai children  in
the Uplands were raised to shoot Korunnai on sight.
     It was a very old-fashioned war, on  the  Korun  side.  The  metal-eating
fungi restricted them mostly  to  simple  weapons-usually  based  on  chemical
explosives of one kind or another-and living mounts instead of vehicles.  They
couldn't  even  use  comm  units,   because   the   Balawai   government   had
geosynchronous  detector  satellites  in  orbit  that  could   pinpoint   comm
transmissions instantly. They coordinated their activities through a system of
Force communication that was hardly more sophisticated than smoke signals.
     By the time Nick was old enough to fight, the Summertime War had become a
tradition, almost a sport: late in the spring, when the winter rains were long
enough gone that the hills were passable, the more adventurous young  men  and
women of the Korunnai would band together on their grassers for  their  yearly
forays against the  Balawai.  The  Balawai,  in  turn,  would  load  up  their
steamcrawlers and grind out to meet them. Each summer would be a  fever  dream
of ambush and counterambush, steamcrawler sabotage  and  grasser  shooting.  A
month or so before autumn brought the rains again, everyone would go home.
     To get ready for next year.
     Some of Depa's dazzling success was now  explained,  Mace  realized:  she
didn't have to create a guerrilla army. She'd found one ready-made.
     Blooded and hungry.
     'This Clone War of yours? Who cares? You  think  anybody  on  Haruun  Kal
gives a handful of snot who rules on Coruscant? We kill seppies  because  they
give weapons and supplies to the Balawai.  The  Balawai  support  the  seppies
because they get stuff like those gunships. For free, too. They used  to  have
to buy them and ship 'em in from Opari. You follow? This is  our  war,  Master
Windu." Nick shook his head with amused contempt. "You guys are  just  passing
through."
     'You make it sound almost like fun."
     'Almost?" Nick grinned down at him. "It's the most fun you can have while
you're sober. And you don't really have to be all that sober; look at Lesh."
     'I admit I don't know a lot about war. But I know it's not a game."
     'Sure it is. You keep score by body count."
     'That's revolting."
     Nick shrugged. "Hey, I've lost friends. People who were as much family to
me as anyone can be. But if you let the anger chew you up inside, you're  just
gonna do something stupid and get yourself  killed.  Maybe  along  with  other
people you care about. And fear is just as bad: too cautious gets people  just
as dead as too bold."
     'Your answer is to pretend it's fun?"
     Nick's grin turned sly. "You don't pretend anything. You have to  let  it
be fun. You have to find the part of yourself that likes it."
     'The Jedi have a name for that."
     'Yeah?"
     Mace nodded. "It's called the dark side."
     Night.
     Mace sat cross-legged before his wallet tent, stitching  a  tear  in  his
pants left by a brush with a  brassvine.  He  had  his  fake  datapad  propped
against his thigh; its screen provided enough  light  that  he  could  do  the
needlework without drawing blood. Its durasteel casing showed black mildew and
the beginning of fungal scarring, but it had been adapted for the  Haruun  Kal
jungles, and it still worked well enough.
     They'd finished their cheese and smoked meat. The Korunnai field-stripped
their weapons by touch, reapplying portaak amber to vulnerable surfaces.  They
spoke together in low voices: mostly sharing opinions on the weather  and  the
next day's ride, and whether they might reach Depa's ULF band before they were
intercepted by an air patrol.
     When Mace finished patching his pants, he  put  away  the  stitcher,  and
silently watched the Korunnai, listening to their conversation. After a  time,
he picked up the datapad's recording rod and flicked it on, fiddling  with  it
for a moment to adjust its encryption protocol.
     When he had it set to his satisfaction, he brought the recording rod near
his mouth and spoke very softly.
     FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU
     I've read war tales in the Temple archives, from the early years  of  the
Republic and before.  According  to  these  tales,  soldiers  in  bivouac  are
supposed to speak endlessly of their parents or their sweethearts, of the food
they would like to eat or wine they wish they  were  drinking.  And  of  their
plans for after the war. The Korunnai mention none of these things.
     For the Korunnai, there is no "after the war."
     The war is all there is. Not one  of  them  is  old  enough  to  remember
anything else.
     They don't allow themselves even a fantasy of peace.
     Like that death hollow we passed today-
     Deep in the jungle, Nick turned our grasser aside from our line of  march
to skirt a deep fold in the ground that was choked with a riot  of  impossibly
lush foliage. I didn't have to ask why. A death hollow is a  low  point  where
the heavier-than-air toxic gases that roll downslope from  the  volcanoes  can
pool.
     The corpse of a hundred-kilo tusker lay just within its  rim,  its  snout
only a meter below the clear air that  could  have  saved  it.  Other  corpses
littered the  ground  around  it:  rot  crows  and  jacunas  and  other  small
scavengers I didn't recognize, lured to their deaths  by  the  jungle's  false
promise of an easy meal.
     I said something along these lines to Nick. He laughed and  called  me  a
Balawai fool.
     'There's no false promise," he'd said. "There's no promise  at  all.  The
jungle doesn't promise. It  exists.  That's  all.  What  killed  those  little
ruskakks wasn't a trap. It was just the way things are."
     Nick says that to  talk  of  the  jungle  as  a  person-to  give  it  the
metaphoric aspect of a creature, any creature-that's a Balawai  thing.  That's
part of what gets them killed out here.
     It's a metaphor that shades the way you think: talk of the  jungle  as  a
creature, and you start treating it like a creature. You  start  thinking  you
can outsmart the jungle, or trust it, overpower it or befriend it, deceive  it
or bargain with it.
     And then you die.
     'Not because the jungle kills you. You get it? Just because it is what it
is." These are Nick's words. "The jungle doesn't  do  anything.  It's  just  a
place. It's a place where many, many things  live...  and  all  of  them  die.
Fantasizing about it-pretending it's something it's not-is fatal. That's  your
free life lesson for the day," he told me. "Keep it in mind."
     I will.
     I have a feeling that his lesson applies equally well to  this  war.  But
how can I avoid pretending this war is something it's not? I  don't  yet  know
what real war really is.
     So far, I have only impressions...
     Vast. Unknown, and unknowable. Living darkness. Deadly as this jungle.
     And my guide cannot be trusted.
     Day.
     Mace stood in a universe of rain.
     As though the jungle's trees and ferns and flowers had grown at the  foot
of a towering waterfall, rain pounded through leaf and branch with a roar that
made conversation possible only in shouts. No  waterproof  gear  could  handle
this; in less than a minute, Mace's clothes had soaked through. He dealt  with
it Korun-style: he ignored it. His clothes would dry, and so would he. He  was
more concerned with his eyes; he had to shelter them with both hands in  order
to look up against the rush. Visibility was only a handful of meters.
     It was just barely good enough that he could see the corpses.
     They hung upside down, elbows bent at a strange angle because their hands
were still tied behind them. Living gripleaves twined around their ankles held
them six meters above the jungle floor, low enough to bring their heads within
an easy jump for a vine cat like the one an akk had chased  off  as  Mace  and
Nick approached.
     Mace counted seven bodies.
     Birds and insects had been at them as well as the vine cats. They'd  been
hanging for a while. In damp gloom that alternated with thunderous  downpours.
And metals weren't the only thing that the  local  molds  and  fungi  fed  on.
Through the colorless tatters that were all that remained of  their  clothing,
it was impossible to tell even if they had been men or women.  Mace  was  only
moderately certain they had been human.
     He stood beneath them, looking up into the empty eye sockets of  the  two
that still had heads.
     'Is this what you felt?" Nick shouted down from the saddle.  His  grasser
reached for the gripleaves that held the bodies, and Nick jabbed its  forelimb
with his brassvine goad. The grasser decided to rip up some nearby glass-ferns
instead. It never stopped chewing.
     Mace nodded. Echoes of these murders howled in the Force around him. He'd
been able to feel it from hundreds of meters away.
     This place stank of the dark side.
     'Well, now you've seen it. Nothing for us to do here. Come on, mount up!"
     The corpses stared down at Mace without eyes.
     Asking him: What will you do about us?
     'Are they-" Mace's voice was thick; he had to cough it clear, and  enough
water ran into his mouth that he passed a few seconds coughing for real.  "Are
these Balawai?"
     'How should I know?"
     Mace stepped out from below the bodies and squinted up at Nick.  A  blaze
of lightning above the canopy haloed the young Korun's black hair  with  gold.
"You mean they could have been Korunnai?"
     'Sure! What's your point?" He seemed puzzled that Mace would care one way
or the other.
     Mace wasn't sure why he cared, either. Or even if he  cared.  People  are
people. Dead is dead.
     Even if these had happened to be  the  enemy,  nothing  could  make  this
right.
     'We should bury them."
     'We should get out of here!"
     'What?"
     'Mount up! We're leaving."
     'If we can't bury them, at  least  we  can  cut  them  down.  Burn  them.
Something." Mace caught at the  mounting  rope  as  though  his  merely  human
strength might hold back the two-ton grasser.
     'Sure. Burn 'em." Nick sputtered a mouthful of the  drenching  rain  down
the grasser's flank. "There's that Jedi sense of humor again..."
     'We can't just leave them for the scavengers!"
     'Sure we can. And we will." Nick leaned down toward him, and on his  face
was something that might have even been pity. For Mace, that is. For the dead,
he seemed to feel nothing at all.
     'If those are Korunnai," Nick shouted, not unkindly, "to  give  them  any
kind of decent burial will only light a giant We-Were-Here ad-vertiscreen  for
the next band of irregulars or militia patrol. And give  them  a  pretty  good
idea of when. If those are Balawai-"
     He glanced up at them. Everything human left his face.
     He lowered his voice, but Mace could read his lips. "If they're Balawai,"
he muttered, "this is already better than they deserve."
     Night.
     Mace woke from evil dreams without opening his eyes.
     He wasn't alone.
     He didn't need the Force to tell him  this.  He  could  smell  him.  Rank
sweat. Drool and raw thyssel.
     Lesh.
     Barely a murmur: "Why here, Windu? You come here why?"
     The wallet tent was pitch black. Lesh shouldn't even have known Mace  was
awake.
     'What want here, you? Come to take her away from us, you? Said you would,
she." His  voice  was  blurry  with  the  drug  and  with  a  childlike  weepy
puzzlement, as though he suspected Mace might break his favorite toy.
     'Lesh." Mace pitched his voice deep. Calm. Assured as a father. "You have
to leave my tent, Lesh. We can talk about this in the morning."
     'Think you can? Huh? Think you can?" His voice thinned: a shout strangled
to a whisper. Now Mace smelled machine oil and portaak amber.
     He was armed.
     'Don't understand yet, you. But find out, you will-"
     Mace reached into the Force. He could feel him: crouched by Mace's ankle.
Mace's bedroll was pinned beneath his boots.
     A less-than-ideal combat position.
     'Lesh." Mace added the Force to his voice. "You want to leave, now. We'll
talk in the morning."
     'What morning? Morning for you? Morning for me?"
     Mace couldn't tell if he was saying morning, or mourning.
     Something was still strong enough even in Lesh's thyssel-addled mind that
he could resist Mace's Force-pushed order. "Don't  know  anything,  you."  His
voice went thicker, hitching, as if he wasn't breathing well. "But teach  you,
will Kar. What you do, he knows. Teach you, will the akks. Wait, you. Wait and
see."
     Kar? There'd been a Kar Vaster mentioned in several  of  Depa's  reports.
His name had come up as a particularly capable leader  of  a  commando  squad,
independent or  semi-independent;  Mace  was  unclear  on  the  ULF's  command
structure. But Lesh breathed the name with a sort of superstitious awe...
     And had he said akks? or ax?
     'Lesh. You have to go. Now." Questions notwithstanding, Mace was  not  so
foolish as to engage a bark-drunk man in conversation.
     'Think you know her. Think she's yours. Teach  you  better.  Maybe.  Live
long enough to learn, you? Maybe not."
     That was enough of a threat for  a  flick  of  the  Force  to  bring  his
lightsaber to his hand. The sizzling flare of its  blade  cast  purple-fringed
shadows. But Lesh was not attacking.
     He hadn't moved. His rifle was tucked crosswise into his lap.
     Tears streamed down his face.
     That was the blur in his voice. That was the thick hitch.
     He was crying. Silently.
     'Lesh," Mace began in astonishment, "what's the ma-" He  stopped  himself
because Lesh was still bark-drunk, and Mace was still not a fool. Instead,  he
offered a hand towel from his kitbag. "Here. Wipe your face."
     Lesh took it and smeared the streaks below his eyes. He  stared  down  at
the towel and knotted it between his fists. "Windu-"
     'No." Mace held out his hand for the towel. "We'll talk in  the  morning.
After you sober up."
     Lesh nodded and sniffled against the back of  his  fist.  With  one  last
beseeching look at Mace, he was gone.
     The night rolled on, slow and sleepless.  Meditation  offered  less  rest
than sleep would, but no dreams.
     Not a bad bargain.
     In the morning, when he asked Lesh if  he  still  wanted  to  talk,  Lesh
pretended he didn't know what Mace meant. Mace watched his back as  he  walked
away, and a flash of Force intuition took him and shook him and he knew:
     By nightfall, Lesh would be dead.
     Day.
     The akks' Force yammer was almost painful. They'd given this  call  often
enough that Mace knew it now.
     Gunships. More than one.
     Mace could feel that Nick was worried.  In  the  Force,  dry-ice  tension
rolled off him. It was starting to affect Mace, too: breathing it in off  Nick
tied knots in Mace's stomach.
     Air patrols had been  dogging  them  all  day  long.  Spiral  routes  and
quarter-cutting: search pattern. It wasn't safe to assume  they  were  looking
for anything but the four Korunnai and Mace.
     Tension twisted those knots in Mace's guts. How could people  live  their
lives under this kind of pressure?
     'Bad luck," Nick muttered under his breath. "Bad, bad luck."
     They were exposed in a notch pass through a razorback ridge:  some  long-
ago groundquake had knocked a gap here. A broad fan  of  scrub-clutched  scree
made the ramp they'd climbed up to the pass. They'd  been  picking  their  way
through a jumble of boulders a few dozen meters wide, akks ranging before  and
behind; the sides of the gap were towering cliff  faces  hung  with  flowering
vines and epiphytic trees that clung to the rock with root-fingered grips. The
spine of the ridge was shrouded in low  clouds.  Only  two  or  three  hundred
meters away, the slope on the far side led down into dark jungle beyond.  They
might be able to reach the trees before the air patrol overflew them-
     But Nick reined in their grasser. "Lesh is in trouble."
     Mace didn't have to ask how he knew:  these  young  folk  shared  a  bond
almost as profound as the one they had with their akks.
     Mace thought of his Force-flash from the morning. He said, "Go."
     Nick wheeled the grasser and they galloped back through the  notch.  From
Mace's rear-facing saddle, he watched Chalk overtaking them on  her  way  back
from her position on point. Her grasser was the fastest of the  four,  and  it
carried only half the load of Nick's.
     As they cleared the crest of the  pass,  Mace  used  the  Force  to  lift
himself up so that he could stand on the saddle facing forward, his  hands  on
Nick's back, leaning to see past his shoulder.
     On the descending curve of the pass, someone was down. An akk  dog  nosed
him nervously. Lesh. His grasser stood placidly a dozen meters  away,  ripping
small trees from the cliff wall to fill its ever-chewing maw. Besh  got  there
first; he swung down from his grasser and sprinted to his brother's side.
     'Get up!" Nick shouted. "Mount up and move!"
     Nick gestured, and in the Force Mace felt a tug as though an unseen  hand
had taken hold of his line of sight and  dragged  it  out  toward  the  jungle
below: a pair of matte-dull specks of metal skimmed  the  canopy,  trailing  a
shock wake of roiling leaves.
     Gunships. Coming straight for the notch.
     'Might not have seen us yet," Nick muttered to himself.  "Might  just  be
checking the pass-"
     'They've seen us."
     Nick looked down at Mace past his shoulder. "How do you know?"
     'Because they travel in threes."
     His last word was  swallowed  by  howls  of  repulsorlifts  and  snarling
turbojets that brought a gunship slewing into the gap from the other  side  of
the ridge. Mace expected it to swoop in for a strafing  run,  but  instead  it
hovered, cycling its turbojets. "What are they doing?"
     Nick scowled back at the gunship. "You've  heard  the  expression,  We're
cooked?'
     'Yes..."
     Ventral bays swung open in the gunship's belly, and nozzles shaped like a
chemical rocket's reaction chamber  deployed  in  a  wide-angled  array.  They
belched jets of flame that hit the ground and splashed and ran like rivers  of
fire, coating rocks and filling crevices. In just over a second the whole  end
of the pass had become an inferno so intense Mace had to shield his face  with
his arm. The gunship swept toward them, burying the gap in fire.
     'In this case," Nick said grimly, "it's not just an expression."
     BLOOD FEVER
     T
     he gunship bore down on them, riding a towering fan of flame.
     The grasser unleashed an  earsplitting  honk  and  threw  itself  into  a
shockingly fast sprint, bounding from rock to rock, bucking  and  twisting  in
the air. Nick unleashed an equally earsplitting  stream  of  profanity  as  he
wrapped his arms around its neck to hang on. Its  forebody  whipped  back  and
forth, and all four of its arms windmilled in panic.
     Mace gathered himself, feeling the flow of the Force,  letting  his  mind
link the path of the bucking grasser  to  the  jets  of  the  gunship's  flame
projectors. As the gunship sailed overhead, Mace stiffened  his  hand  into  a
blade and jabbed the grasser in the nerve plexus below its midshoulder.
     The grasser blared a yelp like the horn of an air taxi in  heavy  traffic
and leapt five meters sideways-into the gap between the fringes of  two  flame
streams, so that they roared  around  Nick  and  Mace,  only  a  few  splashes
igniting patches of fur on the grasser's legs. Mace gestured,  and  the  Force
pushed air away from the burning fur, snuffing it within a bubble of vacuum.
     The gunship thundered past, gouts of  flame  clawing  toward  Chalk.  She
slipped around to the chest  of  her  grasser,  and  it  cradled  her  in  its
forelimbs as it ran, shielding her with its body. Nick's curses  strangled  to
coughs on the thick black petrochemical smoke.
     The smoke burned Mace's eyes like acid, blinding him with tears. He  used
the Force to nail himself to the saddle, then by  feel  he  flipped  open  the
stolen medpac that hung from Nick's belt, and let the  Force  tell  him  which
spray hypo to use. He jabbed it  into  Nick's  back  beside  his  spine,  then
triggered it against his own chest.
     Nick twisted at the sting. "What the^ra^-?"
     'Gas binder," Mace said. Intended  for  emergency  use  during  fires  on
shipboard, the gas binder selectively  scrubbed  a  user's  bloodstream  of  a
variety of toxins, from carbon monoxide to hydrogen cyanide. "Not as good as a
breath mask, but it'll keep us conscious for a few minutes-"
     'We get to be wide awake while we burn to death? Great! How  can  I  ever
thank you?"
     The gunship heeled over as it slewed into a curve  that  would  bring  it
around for another run. Flame raked the haunches of Chalk's grasser,  and  its
whole flank caught fire. It screamed and threw up  its  hands  as  it  pitched
forward, thrashing on the burning rocks, sending Chalk tumbling  hard  into  a
boulder. Her Force-bonded akk, Galthra, bounded from  crag  to  crag,  howling
fury, clawing at the air as though she wanted to reach up and drag the gunship
down on top of her. Mace felt no fear from her: akks were bred on  the  slopes
of active volcanoes, and their  armored  hide  was  tough  enough  to  stop  a
lightsaber.
     The gunship rounded its turn and streaked back toward Mace and Nick.
     Mace  reached  deeper  into  the  Force,  opening  himself,   seeking   a
shatterpoint. The fluid situation in the notch pass  gelled,  then  splintered
into crystal: grassers and akks  and  people  and  gunships  became  nodes  of
stress, vectors of intersecting energy joined by flaws and fault lines. Mace's
mouth set in a grim slit.
     He saw one bare chance.
     The gunship could pass  above  them  and  rain  fire  all  day  long;  no
lightsaber was going to deflect a wash of flame-fuel. But: if the  militia  in
the gunship wanted to take out the akks as well...
     The gunship's aft launchers coughed and concussion missiles streaked back
down the pass toward Besh and Lesh. The shock of explosions made  the  inferno
around Mace and Nick whip and jump and  spit,  and  was  answered  by  smaller
detonations on all sides, as heat-stressed stone  began  to  shatter.  Red-hot
shards of half-molten rock slashed through the flames.  Wherever  they  landed
they stuck, sizzling. Mace's vest  smoldered,  and  Nick  was  kept  too  busy
smacking flames off his tunic and pants to even remember to curse.
     Mace used the Force to unclip the grenade pack Nick  had  taken  off  the
mercenaries in Pelek Baw, then he snatched the captured over-under out of  its
scabbard on the grassers harness.
     Nick twisted again, eyes wild, barely hanging on.  "What  are  you  doing
now?"
     'Jump."
     "What-?"
     With a surge of the Force Mace yanked him out of the  saddle  an  instant
before a missile took their grasser full in the chest. The  explosion  blasted
them tumbling through the air in a cloud of vaporized flesh and bone.
     Through the Force Mace felt Nick's  consciousness  fuzz  from  the  shock
wave; he turned his tumble into a forward flip that landed  him  on  his  feet
among the rocks. The Force whipped the over-under's sling up his  arm  to  his
shoulder to free his hands, then caught Nick's limp  body  and  delivered  him
lightly to Mace's arms.
     Nick looked up at him with eyes that  didn't  quite  focus.  "Wha-?  Wha'
happen-?"
     'Stay here," Mace said. He tucked Nick into a gap between two house-sized
boulders; their mass would take a long  time  to  heat,  even  in  the  raging
inferno. Meanwhile they'd offer shelter from the fire.
     'Are you crazy?" Nick asked blurrily. "You know what  kind  of  firepower
those ruskakks pack?"
     'Two Taim and Bak dual KX-Four ball turrets, port  and  starboard,"  Mace
said absently as he crouched behind the rock, slapping a Nytinite grenade into
the over-under while he waited for the gunship  to  finish  its  sweep.  "Twin
fixed-position Krupx MG-Three mini missile tubes fore and aft, a belly-mounted
Merr-Sonn Sunfire One Thousand flame projector-"
     'And their armor!" Nick said. His eyes were only now starting  to  clear.
"What do we have that can punch through that armor?"
     'Nothing."
     'So what exactly do you think you're gonna do?"
     Mace said, "Win."
     The gunship hurtled past. In  the  bare  second  that  Mace  was  in  the
gunners' blind zone he stood up and launched a Nytinite grenade in a high arc.
In the Force he felt its path; as it overtook the gunship, only  the  subtlest
of nudges was required to loop it directly in front of the gunship's starboard
turbojet intake, which promptly sucked it in like a snapfish taking  a  bottle
bug.
     Metal screamed. Nytinite grenades didn't  actually  detonate;  they  were
canisters that released jets of gas. That this  one  was  a  grenade  was  not
pertinent. What was pertinent was that a half-kilo chunk of durasteel had been
sucked into turbojet fans that were rotating at roughly one bazillion rpm.
     In round numbers.
     A wash of purple gusted out the exhaust, followed by white-hot chunks  of
the turbojet's internal fans.  More  superheated  chunks  ripped  through  the
turbojet's housing, and the whole engine blasted itself to shards, sending the
gunship slewing wildly sideways to bounce off the face of the cliff wall.
     Mace looked down at Nick. "Any questions?"
     Nick appeared to be in danger of choking on his own tongue.
     Mace said, "Excuse me," and was gone.
     The Force launched him over the rocks like  a  torpedo.  He  stayed  low,
blasting through flames too fast to get burned,  skimming  the  slag  beneath;
kicking off from one boulder to another, he ricocheted across the pass  toward
Chalk and her aak, Galthra.
     The two gunships approaching from below swooped up toward the gap. Besh's
grasser was down, kicking, on fire, and screaming. Lesh's was already  just  a
pile of ragged meat. A missile took one of their akks in the flank; though akk
hide is nearly impenetrable, the hydraulic shock of the  missile's  detonation
made a bloody hash of its internal organs. The akk staggered  into  the  rocks
before it fell. Besh dragged his brother through the flames into cover  behind
its massive armored body. The akk's body bucked and  jounced  as  round  after
round of cannonfire slammed into it, making it twitch as though still alive.
     Behind Mace, the pilot of the first gunship  finally  recovered  control,
shutting down the port turbojet and bringing the craft around on repulsorlifts
alone. Mace could feel Chalk recovering consciousness among the burning rocks,
but he didn't have time to do anything for her right now. Instead, he followed
the drift of her awakening mind into the Force-bond she shared  with  Galthra.
One second was enough for Mace to sound the depths of that bond: he  took  its
full measure.
     Then he just took it.
     Galthra's bond with Chalk was deep and strong, but it was a  function  of
the Force, and Mace was a Jedi Master. Until he released  the  akk,  Galthra's
bond would be with him.
     Mace hurled himself flipping through the air as Galthra  sprang  down  to
meet him. She hit the ground already gathered  for  her  next  leap  and  Mace
finished his flip to land standing on her back. She was not trained to carry a
rider in battle, but the flow of the Force through  their  bond  made  them  a
single creature. Mace wedged his left foot behind  her  cowl  spines  and  she
sprang out into the pass, bounding a jagged path through the inferno of  flame
and bursting stone.
     Crouching low to take some  cover  from  Galthra's  massive  skull,  Mace
slipped a grenade from the pack into the over-under's launcher, then slung the
weapon without firing. Behind him, he felt the forward missile  ports  of  the
damaged gunship cycle open.
     Mace murmured, "Right on time."
     He and Galthra reached the crest of the pass. The two gunships  in  front
of him roared up the slope. The one behind launched a  concussion  missile  at
Galthra's back.
     In the shaved semisecond after launch, that  eyeblink  when  the  missile
seemed to hang in the air as though gathering itself for the full ignition  of
its main engine and the multiple dozens of standard gravities of  acceleration
it would pull in its lightning flight, the Force-bond between Mace and Galthra
pulsed and the great akk made a sudden leap to the left.
     The missile screamed past so  close  that  its  exhaust  scorched  Mace's
scalp.
     And one little nudge in the Force-hardly more than an affectionate  chuck
under the chin-tipped its diamond-shaped  warhead  up  a  centimeter  or  two,
altering its angle of attack just enough that the missile skimmed the crest of
the pass instead of impacting on the burning ground. It streaked on,  punching
black smoke into turbulence vortices that trailed its  tail  fins,  until  the
lead gunship swooped up the far side of the pass and took the missile right up
its nose.
     A huge white fireball knocked it rearing back like  a  startled  grasser,
and black smoke poured from the twisted gap  blown  in  its  nose  armor.  Its
turbojets roared, and smoke whipped from its screaming  repulsorlifts  as  its
pilot fought for control. The third  gun-ship  slewed,  yawing  wildly  as  it
reversed thrust and dived to avoid ramming the other's rear end.
     Mace and Galthra raced straight toward them.
     As they passed the shuddering hulk of Chalk's grasser, Mace  reached  for
the Thunderbolt. It flipped from the ground into  his  arms,  its  power  pack
nestling between his feet. He cradled the massive weapon at  his  hip,  angled
the barrel at the third gunship, and held down the trigger.
     Mace surfed through the flames and black stinging smoke, over the slag of
melting rock, through the thunder and shrapnel shrieks of  bursting  stone  on
the back of three-quarters of a metric ton of armored  predator,  firing  from
the hip, hammering out a fountain of packeted energy that ripped  its  way  up
the side of the gunship. The Thunderbolt didn't have the  punch  to  penetrate
the gunship's heavy  armor  plating,  but  that  didn't  matter;  the  roaring
repeater was merely Mace's calling card,
     Galthra shot down the slope beneath the gunships and Mace turned to  face
them,  riding  backward,  spraying  the  air  with  blaster-fire   until   the
Thunderbolt overheated and coughed sparks and Mace cast it  aside.  The  third
gunship fired a pair of missiles, but Mace  could  feel  their  point  of  aim
before they squeezed the triggers, and Galthra was so fast in response to  his
Force commands that  neither  of  the  missiles  came  close  enough  for  its
detonation to have so much as mussed his hair.
     If he'd had any.
     Now the gunship's side-mounted laser turrets rotated to track  them,  and
through the Force Mace felt their targeting computers lock on. The two damaged
ships reached firing position, and they also locked on. They were coordinating
their fire: he could not hope to  dodge.  So  he  didn't  bother.  He  brought
Galthra to a halt beneath him.
     He stood motionless, empty-handed, waiting for them to open fire.
     Waiting to give them a brief tutorial on the art of Vaapad.
     Their cannons belched energy and  Mace  threw  himself  into  the  Force,
releasing all but his intention. It was no longer Mace Windu  who  acted:  the
Force acted through him. Depa's lightsaber snapped into his  left  hand  while
his own flipped into his right. The green cascade was  a  jungle-echo  of  the
purple as they both met clawing chains of red.
     On Sarapin, a Vaapad was a notoriously dangerous predator,  powerful  and
rapacious. It attacked with its blindingly fast tentacles. Most had  at  least
seven. It was not uncommon for them to have as many  as  twelve.  The  largest
ever killed had twenty-one. The thing about a Vaapad was that you  never  knew
how many tentacles it had until it was dead: they moved  too  fast  to  count.
Almost too fast to see.
     So did Mace's.
     Energy sprayed around him, but only splatters of it grazed him  here  and
there; the rest went back at the gunship. Though the  Thunderbolt  hadn't  the
power to penetrate their heavy armor, aTaim 8c Bak laser  cannon  is  a  whole
different animal.
     Ten bolts reached his blades. Two apiece went back at the dam aged ships,
bursting against their armor and knocking them reeling to break  their  target
lock. The other six hammered the cockpit of  the  third  gunship,  blasting  a
gaping hole in its transparisteel viewport.
     Mace dropped the lightsabers, swung the over-under forward on its  sling,
and fired from the hip. It belched a single  grenade  that  the  Force  guided
right through that hole into the  cockpit.  The  grenade  made  a  dull,  wet-
sounding whump inside the gunship. A fountain of white goo  splashed  out  the
hole.
     Mace grunted to himself; he thought he'd loaded Nytinite.
     Then he shrugged: Eh. Same difference.
     One of the forward turbojets sucked strings of hardening glop through its
intake, squealed, and chewed itself to shrapnel. The gun-ship lurched  wildly;
with the crew glued fast in the grenade's glop, there was nothing  they  could
do except watch in horror as their ship careened into the face  of  the  ridge
and detonated in an impressive explosion that  splashed  flame  three  hundred
meters down the slope.
     Mace thought, And now, for my next trick...
     He released the over-under and extended his hands  and  both  lightsabers
hurtled back to his grip-
     But the two damaged gunships had peeled off and were already limping away
into the smoke-stained sky.
     He watched them go, frowning.
     He felt oddly distressed.
     Unhappy.
     This had been... strange. Uncomfortable.
     His rigorous self-honesty wouldn't allow him to deny the actual word that
described the feeling.
     It had been unsatisfying.
     FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU
     I don't know how long I stood there, frowning into the sky. Eventually, I
recovered enough of my equanimity to slide off Galthra's back and  release  my
hold on her Force-bond. She bounded off, searching for Chalk upslope among the
burning rocks.
     Nick came stumbling down the slope, picking his  way  through  the  dying
flames, avoiding the half-slagged rocks that  still  glowed  a  dull  red.  He
seemed most impressed by the fight. Adrenaline drunk and childishly giggly, he
seemed deliriously happy, bubbling  over  with  jittery  enthusiasm.  I  don't
recall much of what he said beyond some nonsense about  me  being  a  "walking
one-man war machine."
     Something like that. I'm not sure the word he used was walking.
     Most of what he said was lost in the roar that lived inside  my  head:  a
hurricane-whirl of the thunder of my heart, echoes of the battle's explosions,
and the tidal surge of the Force itself.
     When he reached me, I saw that he was wounded: blood washed down his face
and neck from a deep gash along the side of his head-probably a graze  from  a
rock splinter. But he just kept on about how he'd never seen anything like  me
until I stopped him with a hand on his arm.
     'You're bleeding," I told him, but that dark gleam  in  his  bright  blue
eyes never wavered. He kept going on about  "Alone  against  three  gun-ships.
Three. Alone."
     I told him that I hadn't been alone. I quoted  Yoda:"  'My  ally  is  the
Force.'"  He  didn't  seem  to  understand,  so  I  explained:  "I  had   them
outnumbered."
     What happened next I remember vividly, no matter how much I wish I  could
wipe it from my mind. I couldn't tear my eyes from the  two  damaged  gunships
that by then were mere specks of durasteel soaring into the limitless sky.
     Nick followed my gaze, and said, "Yeah, I know how you  feel.  Shame  you
couldn't roast all three, huh?"
     'How I feel?" I rounded on him. "How,' feel?"
     I had a sudden urge to punch him: an  urge  so  powerful  the  effort  to
restrain it left me gasping. I wanted-I needed-to punch him. To punch  him  in
the face. To feel my fist shatter his jaw.
     To make him shut up.
     To make him not look at me.
     The understanding in his voice-the knowledge in his cold blue eyes-
     I wanted to hit him because he was right. He did know how I felt.
     It was an ugly shock.
     As he said: I'd wanted to destroy those other gunships, too. I wanted  to
rip them out of the sky and watch them burn.  No  thought  of  the  lives  I'd
already taken in the first gunship. No thought of the lives I  would  take  in
the other two. In the Force, I reached out toward the burning wreckage on  the
ridge face above, searching among the flames; for what, I can't say.
     I'd like to think I was feeling for survivors. Checking to see  if  there
were any people, merely wounded, who might be saved from the wreckage.  But  I
cannot honestly say that is true.
     I might have just wanted to feel them burn.
     I also cannot honestly say I'm sorry for the way the fight turned out.
     Though I took their lives in self-defense, and  the  defense  of  others,
neither I nor those I defended are innocents. I cannot honestly claim that  my
Korun companions are any more deserving of life than were the  people  in  the
gunship. What I did in the pass, I cannot call my duty as a Jedi.
     What I did there had nothing to do with peace.
     One might call it an accident of war: it happened that this small band of
murderous guerrillas accompanied  a  Jedi  Master,  and  so  the  spouses  and
children of a gunship crew have suffered a horrible loss. One might call it an
accident of war... even I might call it that-
     If it had been anything resembling an accident.
     If I hadn't been trying to bring that ship down. If  I  hadn't  felt  the
fever in my blood: blood fever.
     The lust for victory. To win, at any cost.
     Blood fever.
     I feel it even now.
     It's not overpowering; I haven't  fallen  that  far.  Yet.  It's  more  a
preference. An expectation. An anticipation that has been disappointed.
     This is bad. Not the worst it can be, but bad enough.
     I have long known that I am in danger here. But only now am  I  beginning
to understand how dark and near that danger is;  I  never  guessed  how  close
Haruun Kal has already brought me to that fatal brink.
     It is a side effect of the Force immersion of  Vaapad.  My  style  grants
great power, but at a terrible risk. Blood fever is a disease  that  can  kill
anyone it touches. To use Vaapad, you must allow yourself to enjoy the  fight.
You give yourself to the thrill of battle. The rush of winning. This is why so
few students even attempt the style.
     Vaapad is a path that leads through the penumbra of the dark side.
     Here in the jungle, that shadow  fringe  is  unexpectedly  shallow.  Full
night is only a step away. I must be very, very careful here.
     Or I may come to understand what's happened to Depa all too well.
     Mace lowered his head. The electric sizzle of  combat  drained  from  his
limbs, leaving them heavy and hurting: he had a variety of  superficial  burns
from plasma splatter and splinters of half-molten rock.
     He made himself look back up the slope into the pass, through  the  dying
flames and the black twists of fading smoke. In the pass above were dead akks,
dead or wounded grassers, and Chalk and Besh and Lesh.
     He recalled his Force-flash of this morning.
     'Come on, settle down," he told Nick. It was astonishing how  tired  he'd
suddenly become. "I think we have casualties."
     They worked their way up the ramp of scree. Above, Chalk limped  over  to
her wounded grasser and shook her head: it had been terribly burned. One whole
flank was only a mass of char. She walked back up the six-meter length of  its
body, dropped to one knee, and stroked its head. It made a faint honk of  pain
and distress, and nuzzled her hand as Chalk drew her slug pistol and  shot  it
just below its crown eye.
     The pistol's single sharp pop echoed from the cliff walls that bound  the
notch. To Mace, it sounded like a punctuation mark: a period for  the  end  of
the battle. The echoes made it into sardonic applause.
     Besh and Lesh still huddled in the shadow of the dead akk. With  the  akk
on one side and a huge crag on the other to shelter them from the flames, Mace
thought they might have made it through.
     Chalk got there before Nick and Mace. All the way down from the
     L
     corpse of her grasser, her eyes stayed locked on where the brothers  must
have been, and from her face Mace could tell that what she saw  was  bad.  She
glanced over at Nick as he and Mace came up,  and  she  gave  that  same  slow
expressionless shake of the head.
     Besh sat on the ground by the dead akk's head. Hugging his knees. Rocking
back and forth. Scattered on the ground around him were contents of a standard
medpac: hand scanner, spray hypos and bandages, bone  stabilizers.  He  didn't
seem to be injured, but he was pale as a dead man, and his eyes were round and
blankly staring.
     Lesh was in convulsions.
     His face had twisted into a  rigid  mask,  a  blind  gape  at  the  empty
afternoon sky. He bucked  and  writhed,  hands  clutching  spastically,  heels
drumming the rocks. Mace's first  thought  was  head  wound-shrapnel  or  rock
splinters in the skull could trigger such seizures-and he couldn't  understand
why Nick and Chalk and his own brother just stood as though they were helpless
to do anything but watch him suffer. Dropping to a knee, Mace reached for  the
medpac scanner. Chalk said, "Leave it."
     Mace looked up at her. She gave him the head shake. "Dead already."
     Mace picked up the scanner anyway, and slid  the  medpac  cover  open  to
activate the display. The readout said Lesh wasn't wounded.
     He was infected.
     Unidentified bloodborne parasites had collected in  his  central  nervous
system. They had now entered a new stage in their life cycle.
     They were eating his brain.
     The previous night in the wallet tent made sense to Mace now:  Lesh  must
have been sick with these parasites already.  And  Mace  had  thought  it  was
nothing but stress and thyssel intoxication.
     'Fever wasps," Nick said hoarsely. He was almost  as  pale  as  Besh.  He
could face violent death with a wink and a sarcastic one-liner, but  this  had
his face shining with pale sweat. He stank of fear. "No telling when he  might
have been stung. Thyssel chewers go faster. The larvae  like  the  bark.  When
they hatch-"
     He swallowed and his eyes went thin. He had to look away.
     'They'll hatch from his  skull.  Through  his  skull.  Like  an,  an,  an
eggshell..."
     The pure uncomplicated horror on his face told Mace this wouldn't be  the
first time he'd seen it happen.
     Mace set the medpac on a cool spot by the dead akk. "It says here he  can
still be  saved."  It  took  only  a  second  to  charge  a  spray  hypo  with
thanatizine. "We can put him in suspended animation.  Slow  down  the...  wasp
larvae... until we can get him to Pelek Baw and a full hospital. Even if  he's
identified-"
     Besh looked up at him, and shook his head in a mute No.
     Mace brushed past him and knelt at Lesh's side. "We can save  him,  Besh.
Maybe it'll mean giving him up to the militia, but at least he'll be alive,"
     Besh caught Mace's arm. His eyes were raw, spidered with blood. Again, he
shook his head.
     'Master Windu." Nick picked  up  the  medpac  case  and  glanced  at  the
readout. "Lesh is way more advanced than this thing says."
     'Medpac scanners are extremely reliable. I can't imagine it's wrong."
     'It's not wrong," Nick said softly. He turned the case so that Mace could
check the screen again. "These aren't Lesh's readings."
     'What?"
     Besh, looking at the ground, touched his own chest with the tips  of  his
fingers, then sagged; he seemed to crumple in on himself, breath  leaving  him
along with hope and fear. His Force aura shaded into black despair.
     Mace looked from Besh to Nick and back again, and then at  Lesh  spasming
on the rocks, and then at the spray hypo still  clutched  nervelessly  in  his
hand. Not because the jungle kills you, Nick had said. Just because it is what
it is.
     Nick retrieved the medpac's  scanner  and  waved  it  near  Mace's  head.
"You're okay," he said thinly, licking pale sweat from his upper lip. "No sign
of infestation." He turned to Chalk, frowning down at the medpac's readout.
     His shoulders slumped and his hand started to shake.
     He had no words, but he didn't need any. She read her fate on his face.
     She stiffened and her mouth went thin and hard. Then she turned away  and
marched downslope.
     'Chalk-" Nick called after her helplessly. "Chalk, wait-"
     'Getting  the  Thunderbolt,  me."  Her  voice  was  squeezed   flat,   as
unemotional as a navcomp's vocabulator. "Good weapon. Will need it, you."
     Nick turned his stricken look on Mace. "Master Windu-" He  held  out  the
medpac scanner imploringly. "Don't make me do my own reading, huh?"
     Mace quickly scanned Nick's spine and skull.  The  readings  indicated  a
clear negative, but Nick didn't seem much relieved.
     'Yeah, well," he said with understated bitterness, "if I was gonna die in
the next day or two, I wouldn't have to worry about taking care of them."
     'Taking care of them?" Mace said. "Is there a treatment?"
     'Yeah." Nick drew his pistol. "I got their treatment right here."
     'That's your answer?" Mace stepped in front of him. "Kill your friends?"
     'Just Lesh," he said, his voice grim and hard, even though it trembled  a
little, like his hand. He didn't  have  Chalk's  mental  toughness.  His  eyes
watered, and his face twisted, and he could barely make himself  look  at  his
friends. "Time enough to take care of Besh  and  Chalk  when  they  start  the
twitches."
     Mace still couldn't believe Nick was serious. "You  want  to  just  shoot
them? Like Chalk's grasser?"
     'Not like her grasser," Nick said. His face had gone gray.  "Not  in  the
head. Scatters the larvae. Some  of  them  will  be  developed  enough  to  be
dangerous." He coughed. "To us."
     'So it's not enough that he dies." Mace breathed Jedi discipline  into  a
wall around his heart: to lock down his empathic horror at the gray rictus  of
Lesh's face. Pink-tinged foam  bubbled  from  Lesh's  lips.  "The...  infested
areas... have to be destroyed. Brain and spinal cord."
     Nick nodded, looking even sicker. "With wasp fever, we usually  burn  the
body, but..."
     Mace understood.  The  escaped  gunships  would  have  transmitted  their
position. No telling what might already be on its way.
     He could not believe what he was about to do. He could not  even  believe
what he was about to say. But he was a Jedi. The purpose of his life was to do
what must be done. To do what others would not, or could not.
     No matter what it was.
     He undipped the lightsabers from his belt. His own and Depa's both.
     Green blade and purple sizzled together in the smoke-hazed air.
     Besh looked up from the ground.  Chalk  went  still  on  the  slope,  the
Thunderbolt cradled in her arms. Nick opened his mouth as though he wanted  to
say something, but didn't know what it might be.
     They all stared at Mace as though they'd never seen him before.
     'He's your friend. Your brother." Mace took a deep breath, steadying  his
own fear and revulsion and his dark, dark loathing for what he must  do.  "You
might want to say good-bye."
     Besh shook his head mutely. With an inarticulate sob compounded of  grief
and terror, he threw himself to his feet and stumbled away upslope.
     Chalk only held Mace's eye for a second, and gave him one slow nod.  Then
she followed Besh. She put  one  strong  arm  around  Besh's  shoulders.  Besh
collapsed against her, sobbing.
     Nick was the last. His eyes showed nothing but pain.  Finally,  he  shook
his head, and tears spilled onto his cheeks. "He's already gone."  He  touched
Mace on the shoulder. "Master Windu-you don't have to do this-"
     'Yes, I do," Mace said. "Or you'll have to."
     Nick nodded reluctant understanding.
     'Thanks. Windu, uh, Master, I-just-thanks." He turned  and  walked  after
the others. "I won't forget it."
     Neither would Mace.
     He stared down at Lesh between the two shining blades.  He  reached  into
the Force, seeking to touch anything of the young man that  might  remain,  to
offer what little comfort might be his to give, but it was as Nick said:  Lesh
was already gone. A long moment passed while Mace composed himself,  found  an
attitude of calm reverence, and consigned whatever might  have  been  left  of
Lesh's consciousness or spirit to the Force.  Then  he  took  a  deep  breath,
lifted his blades, and began.
     The razorback ridge eclipsed the southern sky  behind  them.  The  jungle
canopy overhead glowed with  early  sunset;  on  the  ground  it  was  already
twilight. The companions walked along a broad track crushed bare  by  repeated
passages of steamcrawler treads. The canopy had arched over the track, joining
above so that their path lay  along  a  jungle-lined  tunnel  that  wound  and
switchbacked up and down the folds that radiated from the ridge's north face.
     Mace wore bacta patches trimmed to fit the worst  of  his  burns.  Nick's
temple was shiny with spray  bandage.  Chalk  wore  a  sling  restraining  the
shoulder she'd separated when she tumbled into the rocks,  and  a  compression
wrap supported her twisted knee. Besh walked  in  expressionless  silence.  He
might have been in shock.
     What was left of Lesh was buried at the tree line.
     Their  backpacks  were  heavy  with  supplies  scavenged  from  the  dead
grassers. Little of Mace's gear survived; his  wallet  tent,  his  changes  of
clothing, his own medpac and identikit, all had  been  destroyed  with  Nick's
grasser. The war on Haruun Kal was erasing Mace's connections to life  outside
the jungle: of all the physical evidence that he had ever been anything  other
than a Korun, only the two lightsabers remained.
     Even the fake datapad that he had  carried  all  this  way-its  miniature
subspace coil must have been damaged in the blast. He'd  considered  summoning
the Halleck to evacuate Besh and Chalk for medical treatment, despite the fact
that  it  would  have  severely  compromised  his  mission  here;  the  sudden
appearance of a Republic cruiser in the Al'Har  system  would  certainly  have
drawn entirely too much Separatist attention. But the datapad's  holocomm  had
been unable to even pick up a carrier wave. His last link to what Depa  called
the Galaxy of Peace was as dead as the Balawai militia Mace had sent  crashing
into the razorback ridge.
     A stroke of irony-the fake datapad's  recording  function  still  worked.
Disguise had become reality: the datapad was a fake  no  longer.  Mace  had  a
superstitious hunch that this was somehow symbolic.
     Galthra walked among them at Chalk's side instead of ranging around;  she
was the last of their akks. With a little luck, her presence alone might  keep
major predators at a respectful distance.
     No gunships had yet come  to  the  pass  behind  them.  Mace  found  this
inexplicable, and disturbing. Once in a while,  Galthra  gave  a  Force-twitch
that may have meant she heard engines in the distance,  but  it  was  hard  to
tell. Mostly, she mourned her dead packmates: her Force presence  was  a  long
moan of grief and loss.
     They pushed on. Nick set a killing pace. He had not spoken  since  they'd
buried Lesh's remains.
     Mace guessed that Nick was thinking about  Besh  and  Chalk;  he  himself
certainly was. Thinking about the fever wasp larvae that teemed  within  their
brain and spinal cord tissue. They might have a day  or  two  before  dementia
would begin. A day or two after that: convulsions  and  an  ugly  death.  Besh
walked with his head down, shivering, as though  he  could  think  of  nothing
else; Chalk marched like a war droid, as though suffering and death  were  too
alien for her to even comprehend, let alone fear.
     Mace matched Nick's pace, close by his side. "Talk to me."
     Nick's eyes stayed on the jungle ahead. "Why should I?"
     'Because I want to know what you have in mind."
     'What makes you think I have anything  in  mind?  What  makes  you  think
anything I might have in mind can make a difference?" His  voice  was  angrily
bitter. "We have two people about to  go  into  second-stage  wasp  fever.  No
grassers. One akk. A handful of weapons, militia on our tail. And you and me."
     His gaze slid sideways to meet Mace's. His eyes were red and raw.
     'We're dead. You get it? Like that tusker in  the  death  hollow:  a  few
meters short of where we needed to be. We didn't make it. We're dead."
     'For dead men," Mace observed, "we're making good time."
     For an instant he thought Nick might crack a smile. Instead,  Nick  shook
his head. "There's a lor pelek who travels  with  Depa's  band.  He's...  very
powerful. More than powerful. If we can get Besh and Chalk to him before  they
start the twitches, he might be able to save them."
     Lor pelek: "jungle  master."  Shaman.  Witch  doctor.  Wizard.  In  Korun
legend, the lor pelek was a  person  of  great  power,  and  great  peril.  As
unpredictable as the jungle. He brought life or death: a gift or a  wound.  In
some stories, a lor pelek was not a being at all,  but  was  rather  pelekotan
incarnate: the avatar of the jungle-mind.
     Mace made a connection. "Kar Vaster."
     Nick goggled at him. "How'd you know that? How'd you know his name?"
     'How long before we reach them?"
     Nick trudged on a  few  paces  before  he  answered.  "If  we  still  had
grassers, and akks for warding? Maybe two days. Maybe less. On foot? With only
one akk?" His shrug was expressive.
     'Then why march us so hard?"
     'Because I do have something in mind." He flicked a  sidelong  glance  at
Mace. "But you're not gonna like it."
     'Will I like it less than having to do to Besh and Chalk what I had to do
to Lesh?"
     'That's not for me to say." Nick's gaze went remote, staring off into the
gloom-filled tunnel ahead. "There's a little outpost settlement about an  hour
west of here. Ones like it are strung out every hundred  klicks  or  so  along
these steamcrawler tracks. They'll have a secure bunker, and a comm unit. Even
though we-the ULF-don't use comms, we still monitor the frequencies. We get in
there, we can send a coded signal to them with our position. Then we put Chalk
and Besh in thanatizine suspension, sit tight, and hope for the best."
     'A Balawai settlement?"
     He nodded. "We don't have settlements. DOKAWs saw to that."
     'These Balawai-they'll take us in?"
     'Sure." Nick's teeth gleamed in the jungle twilight, and that manic spark
kindled in his eyes. "You just have to know how to ask."
     Mace's face darkened. "I won't let you harm civilians. Not even  to  save
your friends."
     'No need to scorch your scalp over that one," Nick said, trudging onward.
"Out here, civilians are a myth."
     Mace didn't want to ask what Nick meant by that. He came to a stop on the
rugged track. He saw again the holoprojected carnage spread across the Supreme
Chancellor's desk; he saw again images of huts broken and burned, and nineteen
corpses in the jungle. "You were right," he said. "I don't like  it.  I  don't
like it at all."
     Nick kept walking. He didn't even look over his shoulder as he left  Mace
behind. "Yeah, well, as soon as you come up with a better idea," he said  into
the darkness ahead, "you be sure to let me know, huh?"

     CIVILIANS
     FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU

     In this bunker, the air is closer to cool than any I've  felt  since  the
interrogation room in the Ministry of Justice. The  bunker  is  set  into  the
igneous stone of the hillside-mostly just a durasteel door across the mouth of
a bubble some pocket of gas or softer stone once left  in  the  granite  here.
Though it overlooks the remnants of the outpost compound below, it was clearly
never meant to be  a  combat  position:  no  gun  ports.  From  the  way  it's
constructed-excavated-I believe it was more along the lines of a panic room: a
safe place to hole up in the event of an attack. A safe place to wait for help
from the militia.
     If so, it didn't work.
     The night air gently curls around the twisted shards that are all  that's
left of the door; its whispering passage darkly echoes the violence that still
hums in the Force around me.
     I dare not meditate. The dark is too deep here. It has a  tidal  pull:  a
black hole that I've taken up too tight an orbit around, and it's  tearing  me
in half. Gravity draws the near half of me in toward an event horizon that I'm
afraid to even glimpse.
     Behind me, lost in the night shadows against the stone,  Besh  and  Chalk
lie motionless, nearly as cool as the rock they lie on,  in  full  thanatizine
suspension. Only with the Force can I tell that they still live: their  hearts
beat less than once per minute, and an hour spans no more than ten  or  twelve
shallow  breaths.  The  fever  wasp  larvae  in  their  bodies  are  similarly
suspended; Besh and Chalk might survive a week or more like this.
     Provided nothing eats them in the meantime.
     Making sure they're safe is my job. Right now, it's my only job. And so I
sit among the wreckage of this doorway and stare out into the infinite night.
     The Thunderbolt rests on its bipod in the doorway, muzzle  canted  toward
the sky. Chalk maintains her beloved  weapon  well;  she  insisted  on  field-
stripping it one last time before she would let me inject her.  I  have  test-
fired it at intervals, and it's still working fine.  Though  I  am  trying  to
learn to feel the action of the metal-eating fungi in the Force, the  way  the
Korunnai do, I prefer to depend on practical experiment.
     There is little for me to do right now. I  pass  the  time  by  recording
this-and by thinking about my argument with Nick.
     Back on the trail, Nick said that civilians  are  a  myth.  He  meant,  I
found, that there are no civilians out here: that to be in the jungle is to be
in the war. The Balawai government  promulgates  a  myth  of  innocent  jungle
prospectors being massacred by savage Korun partisans.  This,  Nick  says,  is
only propaganda.
     Now, here in the ruins of this Balawai outpost, I find the thought  oddly
comforting-but earlier this evening I  rejected  the  idea  instinctively.  It
seemed  to  me  nothing  more  than  rationalization.  An  excuse.  A  sop  to
consciences haunted by atrocities. On the hike along the  steam-crawler  track
that led us here, Nick and I went back and forth about it quite a bit.
     According to Nick, civilians stay in the cities; the only real  civilians
on Haruun Kal are the waiters and  the  janitors,  the  storekeepers  and  the
taxicart pullers. He said there's a reason why jungle prospectors  carry  such
heavy weapons, and that reason has more to do with akk  dogs  than  with  vine
cats. Balawai do not go into the jungle unless  they're  ready,  willing,  and
able to kill Korunnai. Nobody on either side waits for the other to attack. In
the jungle, if you don't strike first you're nothing but prey.
     Then I asked him about the dead children.
     It's the only time I've yet seen Nick angry. He wheeled  on  me  like  he
wanted to throw a punch. "What children?" he said. "How old do you have to  be
to pull a trigger? Kids make great soldiers.They barely know what fear is."
     It is wrong to make war on children-or with them-and I told  him  so.  No
matter what. They're not old enough to understand the  consequences  of  their
actions. He replied in staggeringly obscene terms that I should tell  that  to
the Balawai.
     'What about our children?" He shook with  barely  restrained  fury.  "The
jups can leave their kids at home in the city. Where do we leave ours?  You've
seen Pelek Baw.You know what happens to a Korun kid on those  streets-,'  know
what happens. I was one of them. Better blown to pieces out here  than  having
to-survive-like I did. So then, out here, how do you tell the gunners in those
ships that the Korunnai they're happily blowing arms and legs off of, are only
kids?"
     'Does that justify what happens to the Balawai  children?  The  ones  who
don't stay in the cities?" I asked him. "The Korunnai aren't  firing  down  at
random from a gunship. What's your excuse?"
     'We don't need an excuse," he said. "We don't murder kids. We're the good
guys."
     'Good guys," I echoed. I could not keep a bitter edge from my voice:  the
holographic images shown to Yoda and me in Palpatine's office  are  never  far
beneath the surface of my mind. "I have seen what's left behind when your good
guys are done with a jungle prospector outpost," I told him. "That's  why  I'm
here."
     'Sure it is. Hah. Let me share something with you, huh?" Changeable as  a
summer storm, Nick's anger had blown away between one eye-blink and the  next.
He gave me a look of amused pity. "I've been waiting for days for you to bring
that up."
     'What?"
     'You Jedi and your secrets and all that tusker  poop.  You  think  nobody
else can keep their chip-cards close to the chest?" He  rolled  his  eyes  and
waggled his fingers near his face. "Ooo, look out, I'm a Jedi! I  know  things
Too Dangerous for Ordinary Mortals! Careful! If you don't stand back, I  might
tell you something Beings Were Not Meant to Know!"
     It has occurred to me, on reflection, that Nick Rostu can be regarded  as
a test of my moral conviction. A Jedi might conceivably fall to the dark  from
the simple desire to smack the snot out of him.
     At the time, I managed to restrain myself, and even to maintain  a  civil
tone, while Nick revealed that he knew all about the jungle massacre  and  the
data wafer.
     It wasn't easy.
     He told me that not only had he been there-at the very scene Yoda  and  I
had viewed in Palpatine's office-he had been in the company of  Depa  and  Kar
Vastor when they'd thought the whole scheme up. He had helped them  dress  the
scene, and later it was Nick himself who had tipped off Republic Intelligence.
     Even now, hours later, it's hard for me to put into words how  that  made
me feel. Disoriented, certainly: almost dizzy. Disbelieving.
     Betrayed.
     I have been carrying those images like a wound. They've  festered  in  my
mind, so inflamed and painful I've had to cushion them in  layers  of  denial.
Pain like that makes a wound precious; when the slightest touch is agony,  one
must keep the wound so protected, so sequestered, that it becomes an object of
reverence. Sacred.
     But Nick told the story like it had been  just  some  kind  of  practical
joke.
     Hmm. I find now another word for how I felt. For how I feel.
     Angry.
     This, too, makes meditation difficult. And risky.
     It is as well that Nick left on Galthra some hours ago. Perhaps before he
returns-,'/he returns-I will have found a place in my mind to put these things
he shared with me, where they will no longer whisper violence behind my heart.
     The whole massacre was staged.
     Not fake. The bodies were real.The death was real. But it was a setup. It
was a practical joke. On me.
     Depa wanted me here.
     That's what this has been about. From the beginning.
     That data wafer wasn't a frame, and it wasn't a confession. It was a
     lure. She wanted to draw me from Coruscant, bring me to Haruun  Kal,  and
drop me into this nightmare jungle.
     Many of the corpses were indeed jungle prospectors, Nick told  me.  Jups,
when they're not harvesting the jungle, act  as  irregulars  for  the  Balawai
militia. They are vastly more dangerous than the  gunships  and  the  detector
satellites and all the  DOKAWs  and  droid  starfighters  and  armies  of  the
Separatists put together. They know the jungle. They live in it. They use it.
     They are more ruthless than the ULF.
     The rest of the corpses in  that  staged  little  scene-they  were  Korun
prisoners. Captured by the jups. Captured and tortured and  maltreated  beyond
my ability to describe; when the ULF caught up, the first  thing  the  Balawai
did was execute the few prisoners who were still alive.  Nick  tells  me  that
none of them escaped. None of the prisoners. And none of the jups.
     The children-
     The children were Korunnai.
     This Kar Vastor-what kind of man must he be? Nick  told  me  it  was  Kar
Vastor who nailed that data wafer into the dead woman's mouth  with  brassvine
thorns. Nick told me it was Kar Vastor who persuaded  the  ULF  to  leave  the
corpses in the jungle. To make the scene so gruesome that I'd be sure to  come
here to investigate. To leave dead children-their  own  dead  children-to  the
jacunas and the screw maggots and the black stinking carrion flies so full  of
blood they can only waddle across rotting flesh-
     Stop. I have to stop. Stop talking about this. Stop thinking about it.
     I can't-this isn't-
     Nothing in this world can be trusted. What you see is not related to what
you get. I don't seem to be able to comprehend any of it.
     But I'm learning. In learning, I'm changing. The more I change, the  more
I understand. That's what frightens me. I shudder to think  what  will  happen
when I really begin to understand this place.
     By the time I finally get it, who will I be?
     I'm afraid that the man I was would despise the man I am becoming. I have
a terrible dread that this transformation is exactly what  Depa  had  in  mind
when she decided to draw me here. She said there was  nothing  more  dangerous
than a Jedi who'd finally gone sane.
     I think she is dangerous.
     I'm afraid she wants me to become dangerous, too.
     I should-I need to change the-think about something other than-
     Because I asked Nick about her.
     I couldn't help myself. Hope blossomed along with my  anger-if  the  holo
was a setup, maybe what she'd said  was  no  more  than...  atmosphere.  Local
color. Something.
     Despite my determination to hold myself unbiased until I could  see  her,
speak with her, feel her essence  in  the  Force-despite  my  resolve  to  ask
nothing, and hear nothing-despite all my years of  self-discipline  and  self-
control-
     The heart has power that no discipline can answer.
     So I asked him. I told him of Depa's words on the  data  wafer:  how  she
called herself the darkness in the jungle, and  how  she  said  that  she  had
finally gone sane.
     How I fear that in fact she has fallen to the dark, and is  irretrievably
mad.
     And Nick-
     And Nick-
     'Crazy?" he said with a laugh. "You're the one who's crazy.  If  she  was
crazy, nobody'd follow her, would they?"
     But when I asked if he meant she  was  all  right,  he  responded,  "That
depends on what you mean by all right."
     'I need to know if you've seen her act from anger, or  fear.  I  need  to
know if she uses the Force for her personal gratification: for  gain,  or  for
revenge. I need to know how much hold the dark side has on her."
     'You don't have to worry about that," he told me. "I've never met someone
kinder or more caring than Master Billaba. She's not evil. I don't  think  she
could be."
     'This isn't about good  and  evil,"  I  told  him.  "This  is  about  the
fundamental nature of the Force itself.  Jedi  are  not  moralists.  That's  a
common   misperception.   We   are    fundamentally  pragmatic.  The  Jedi  is
altruistic less because to be so is good, than because  to  be  so  is   safe:
to use the Force for personal ends is dangerous. This is  the  trap  that  can
snare even the most good, kind, caring Jedi: it leads to what we call the dark
side. Power to do good eventually becomes just power. Naked force. An  end  in
itself. It is a form of madness to which Jedi are peculiarly susceptible."
     Nick answered this with a shrug. "Who knows the real reasons why  anybody
does anything?"
     This was not a comforting response, and the rest of what he told  me  was
worse.
     He says the words on that crystal are just how Depa talks, now.  He  says
she has nightmares-that screams from her tent tear through the camp.  He  says
no one ever sees her eat-that she's wasting away as though something inside is
instead eating her... He says she has headaches that painkillers cannot touch,
and sometimes cannot leave her tent for days at a time. That  when  she  walks
outside in daylight, she binds her eyes, for she cannot bear the light of  the
sun...
     I am sorry I asked. I am sorry that Nick told me.
     I'm sorry that he did not lie.
     It is very un-Jedi to fear the truth.
     I'll continue the story. Putting experience  into  words  is  a  gain  in
perspective. Which I need. And it's a way to pass  the  hours  of  the  night,
which I also need. Even for  a  Jedi  Master,  accustomed  to  meditation  and
reflection-trained for it-there is such a thing  as  spending  too  much  time
alone with one's thoughts.
     Especially out here.
     This outpost settlement was built at the crest of a shoulder sloping down
from the ridge. The ridge here isn't a razorback anymore, but rather  a  sine-
wave wall of volcanic  mounds.  The  settlement  stands  on  a  green-splashed
outcrop; to either side of this jungle-clutched fist of  stone  are  blackened
washes where lava occasionally flows down from a major caldera, which is about
six hundred meters above where I sit and record this. If you  listen  closely,
you might hear the rumble. This microphone may not be sensitive enough. There-
hear that? It's ramping up for another eruption.
     i*m't'tu. juni 11.1't't
     These eruptions come regularly enough that the jungle doesn't  have  time
to reclaim the lava's path; heat-scorched trees line the washes,  with  leaves
cooked off on the lava side. Eruptions must not be too serious in these parts.
Otherwise, why build an outpost here?
     Well-
     I suppose it could have been for the view.
     The bunker itself is slightly elevated above the rest  of  the  compound.
From where I sit in the wreckage of the  doorway,  I  can  look  down  over  a
charred mess of tumbled and broken prefab huts  and  the  shattered  perimeter
wall.  Pale  glowvine  light  shows  gray  on  the  steamcrawler  track   that
switchbacks up the side of the shoulder.
     Out across the jungle-
     I can see for kilometers up here: ghost-ripples of canopy  spread  below,
silver and black and veined  with  glowvines,  pocked  with  winking  eyes  of
scarlet and crimson and some just dull red: open calderae, active and bubbling
in this volatile region. It's breathtaking.
     Or maybe that's just the smell.
     Another of the ironies that have come crowding into my life: all my worry
about civilians, and battles, and massacres, and having  to  fight  and  maybe
kill men and women who may be only civilians, innocent bystanders, and all  my
arguing with Nick and everything he told me-
     All for nothing. Needn't have worried. When we got here, there was no one
left to fight.
     The ULF had been here already.
     There were no survivors.
     I will not describe the condition of the bodies.  Seeing  what  had  been
done here was bad enough; I feel no urge to share it, even with the Archives.
     I will grant Nick this: the Balawai at this outpost had clearly  been  no
innocent civilians. The Korunnai had left the bodies  draped  with  what  must
have been the most prized pieces of  the  jups'jewelery:  necklaces  of  human
ears.
     Korunnai ears.
     Based on the limited scavenger damage and  the  low  decomposition,  Nick
guessed that the ULF band who'd done this might have passed  through  here  no
more than two or three days before. And there were certain, mmmm, signs-things
done to the bodies-and echoes in the Force that don't seem  to  fade  away,  a
standing wave of power, that suggests this had been the  work  of  Kar  Vastor
himself.
     The ULF guerrillas had also thoroughly looted this place; there is not  a
scrap of food to be found, and only useless bits and pieces of technology  and
equipment. The wreckage of two steamcrawlers lies tumbled  downslope.The  comm
gear is gone as well, of course, which is why I alone am here  to  watch  over
Besh and Chalk.
     When we found the comm gear gone, Nick's spirits collapsed. He  seems  to
alternate despair with that manic cheerfulness of his,  and  it's  not  always
easy to guess what will trigger either state.  He  let  himself  flop  to  the
bloodstained ground, and gave us up for dead. He returned to his  mantra  from
the pass: "Bad luck," he muttered under his breath. "Just bad luck."
     Despair is the herald of the dark side. I touched his shoulder. "Luck," I
told him softly, "does not exist. Luck is only a word we use to  describe  our
blindness to the subtle currents of the Force."
     His response was bitter. "Yeah? What subtle current killed Lesh? Is  this
what your Force had planned foryou? For Besh and Chalk?"
     'The jedi say," I replied, "that there are  questions  to  which  we  can
never have answers; we can only be answers."
     He asked me angrily what that was supposed to mean. I  told  him:  "I  am
neither a scientist nor a philosopher. I'm a Jedi. I  don't  have  to  explain
reality. I just have to deal with it."
     'That's what I'm doing."
     'That's what you're avoiding."
     'You have a Jedi power that can get all of us to Depa and Kar in  a  day?
Or three? They're marching away from us. We can't catch  up.  That's  reality.
The only one there is."
     'Is it?" I let a thoughtful gaze rest on Galthra's broad back. "She moves
well through this jungle. I know that akks are not beasts  of  burden-but  one
man, alone, she might be able to carry at great speed."
     'Well, yeah. If I didn't have to worry about you guys-" He  stopped.  His
eyes narrowed. "Not a chance. Not a chance, Windu! Drop it."
     'I'll watch over them until you get back."
     'I said drop it! I'm not leaving you here."
     'It's not up to you." I stepped close to him. Nick had to bend  his  neck
to look up into my eyes. "I'm not arguing with you, Nick. And I'm  not  asking
you. This is not a discussion. It's a briefing."
     Nick is a stubborn young man, but he's not stupid.  It  didn't  take  him
long to understand that until he met me, he didn't know what  stubborn  looked
like.
     We managed to rig an improvised bareback pad for Galthra; Nick and  Chalk
and I persuaded Galthra, through the Force, to bear Nick on her  back  as  she
had me, and carry him swiftly through the jungle on the trail of the  departed
Korunnai. The three of us watched them vanish into the living night, then Besh
and Chalk arranged themselves as comfortably as possible on the bunker  floor,
and I injected them with tha-natizine.
     We all wait together, in the hope that Nick will win through the  jungle,
in the hope that he might find and bring back this Kar  Vaster-this  dangerous
lor pelek, this terror of the living and mutilator of the dead-and  that  this
man of no conscience or human feeling might use his power to save two lives.
     I wonder what Kar Vaster will think, when he arrives, and  finds  what  I
have done to the scene of his victory.
     I have spent some hours-between the time Nick left and  the  time  I  sat
down here to record this entry-giving the dead a decent burial. Nick  will  no
doubt laugh, and make some snide remark about how  little  I  understand,  how
naive and unready I am for a part in  this  war.  He'll  probably  ask  me  if
burying these people makes them any less  dead.  I  can  only  reply  to  this
imagined scorn with a shrug.
     I didn't do it for them. I did it for me. I did it because  this  is  the
only way I have to express my reverence for the life that was torn from  them,
enemy or no.
     I did it because I don't want to be the  kind  of  man  who  would  leave
someone-like that...
     Anyone.
     I sit here now, knowing that Depa has passed within a few klicks of here;
that she stood, perhaps, on  this  very  spot.  Within  the  past  forty-eight
standard hours. No matter how deeply I reach into the Force-how deeply I reach
into the stone beneath and the jungle around-I can feel nothing of her. I have
felt nothing of her on this planet.
     All I feel is the jungle, and the dark.
     I think of Lesh a lot. I keep  seeing  how  he  writhed  on  the  ground,
twitching in convulsions, teeth clenched and  eyes  rolling,  his  whole  body
twisting with furious life-but the life that twisted him was  not  Lesh's.  It
was something that was eating him from the inside out. When I reached into the
Force for him, all I felt was the jungle. And the dark.
     And then I think of Depa again.
     Perhaps I should listen more, and think less.
     The eruption seems to be strengthening. The rumbling is loud as  a  Pelek
Baw throughway, and tremors have begun to shake the ston? floor. Mmm. And rain
has begun, as it often will: triggered by particu-lates in the smoke plume.
     Speaking of smoke-
     Among the equipment looted by the ULF would have been, no  doubt,  breath
masks; I may miss them more than anything else. I must  have  a  care  for  my
lungs. On this outcrop, I'm in little danger from lava,  but  the  gases  that
roll downslope from such eruptions can be caustic as well as smothering.  Besh
and Chalk will be safer than I. Perhaps I should risk a hibernation trance; no
predator will reach us through the eruption. Predators need to breathe, too.
     And they-
     That-
     Wait, that sounded like-
     Queer. Some Haruun Kal jungle predators mimic their prey's  mating  calls
or cries of distress, to lure or to drive them. I wonder what kind of predator
that one was: something that preys on humans, it must be. That cry almost  got
me. Sounded exactly like a child's scream of terror.
     I mean, exactly.
     And now this one-
     Oh.
     Oh, no.
     That's Basic. Those are screams. There are children out there.
     Mace pelted downslope, running half blind  through  rain  and  smoke  and
steam, navigating by ear: heading for the screams.
     Smoke from the caldera above had smothered the glowvines; his only  light
was the scarlet hellglow that  leaked  through  cracks  in  the  black  crusts
floating on lava flows. Rain flashed to steam a  meter  above  the  washes.  A
swirling red-lit cloud turned the night to blood.
     Mace threw himself into the Force, letting it  carry  him  bounding  from
rock to branch to rock, flipping high  over  crevices,  slipping  past  black-
shadowed tree trunks and under low branches with  millimeters  to  spare.  The
voices came intermittently; in between, through the downpour and the  eruption
and the hammering of his own heart, Mace heard a grinding of steel  on  stone,
and the mechanical thunder of an engine pushed to  the  outer  limits  of  its
power.
     It was a steamcrawler.
     It lay canted at a dangerous angle over a precipice, only a lip  of  rock
preventing a fall into bottomless darkness. One  track  clanked  on  air;  the
other was buried in hardening lava. Lava doesn't behave as a liquid so much as
a soft plastic: as it rolls downslope it cools, and its  piecemeal  transition
into solid rock can produce unpredictable changes in direction: it forms  dams
and blockages and self-building channels that can twist  flows  kilometers  to
either side, or even make them "retreat" and overflow an upstream channel. The
immense vehicle must have been trying to climb the track to the  outpost  when
one of the lava washes plugged, dammed itself, then  diverted  and  swept  the
steamcrawler off the track, down this rainwash gully until it  jammed  against
the lip of rock. The curl and roll of lava  broke  through  black  patches  of
crust around it, scarlet slowly climbing the crawler's undercarriage.
     Though steamcrawlers were low-tech-to reduce their vulnerability  to  the
metal-eating fungi-they  were  far  from  primitive.  A  kilometer  below  the
caldera, the lava flow didn't come close to the melting point of the  advanced
alloys that made up the steamcrawler's armor and treads. But lava was  filling
in the gap below its flat undercarriage  until  the  only  real  question  was
whether the rising lava would topple the  steamcrawler  over  the  lip  before
enough heat conducted through its armor to roast whoever was inside.  But  not
everyone was inside.
     Mace skidded to a stop just a meter upslope of where the flow had cut the
track. The lava had slashed through the dirt to bedrock, making  the  edge  of
the gully where Mace stood into an unstable cliff, eight meters high, above  a
sluggish river of molten stone; the steam-crawler was  a  further  ten  meters
down to his right. Its immense headlamps threw a white glare  into  the  steam
and the rain. Mace could just barely make out two small forms huddled together
on the highest point: the rear corner of  the  cabin's  heavily  canted  roof.
Another crawled through the yellow-lit oblong of an open side hatch and joined
them.
     Three terrified children sobbed on the cabin roof;  in  the  Force,  Mace
could feel two more inside-one injured, in pain  that  was  transforming  into
shock, the other unconscious. Mace could feel the desperate  determination  of
the injured one to get the other  out  the  open  hatch  before  the  'crawler
toppled-because the injured one inside couldn't  know  that  getting  out  the
hatch wouldn't help any of them at all. They still faced a  simple  choice  of
dooms: over the precipice or into the lava. Dead either way.
     If, as some philosophers argued,  there  was  a  deeper  purpose  in  the
universe that the  Jedi  served,  beyond  their  surface  social  function  of
preserving the peace of the Republic-if there was, in fact,  a  cosmic  reason
why Jedi existed, a reason why they were granted  powers  so  far  beyond  the
reach of other mortals-it must have had something to do with  situations  like
this.
     Mace opened himself to the  Force.  He  could  hear  Yoda's  voice:  Size
matters not-which, Mace had always privately considered,  was  more  true  for
Yoda than it was for any of his students. Yoda would probably just reach  out,
lift the steamcrawler from the gully, and ca sually float it up  the  mountain
to the outpost while croaking some enigmatic maxim about how Even a volcano is
as nothing, compared to the power of the Force... Mace was much less confident
in his own raw power.
     But he had other talents.
     A new tremor from the eruption shook the dirt cliff under  his  feet.  He
felt it sag: undercut by the river of lava, the shaking was rapidly destroying
the cliff's structural integrity. Any second now it  would  collapse,  sending
Mace down into the river, unless he did something first.
     The something he did was to reach deep through the Force until  he  could
feel a structure of broken rock ten meters below him and five meters  in  from
the face. He thought, Why wait? and shoved.
     The dirt cliff shook, buckled, and collapsed.
     With a subterranean roar that buried even the thunder of the eruption and
the clamor of the steamcrawler's laboring engine, hundreds of tons of dirt and
rock poured into the river of lava, organics bursting  into  flames  that  the
growing landslide instantly smothered as it built itself into  a  huge  wedge-
shaped berm of raw dirt across the gully; as lava slowly  bulged  and  climbed
the upstream face, the downstream side of the  cliff  continued  to  collapse,
piling over cooler lava that hardened beneath it,  pushing  the  hotter,  more
liquid lava into a wave that washed around the steamcrawler's side, welled  to
the lip of the precipice, then plunged in a rain of fire upon the black jungle
far below.
     The landslide built into a wave of its own that filled in the gully as it
rolled down toward the steamcrawler and the screaming, sobbing children-and on
the very crest of that wave of dirt and rock, backpedaling furiously  to  keep
from being sucked under by the landslide's roll, came Mace Windu.
     Mace rode that crest while  the  wave  sank  and  flattened  and  finally
lurched to a halt, its last remnants trickling into a ridge that joined Mace's
position  with  the  corner  of  the  steamcrawler's  cabin.  Nearly  all  his
concentration stayed submerged in the  Force,  spread  throughout  the  slide,
using a wide-focus Force grip to stabilize the rubble while he scrambled  down
to the steamcrawler's roof.
     On the roof were two young boys, both about six, and a  girl  of  perhaps
eight standard years. They clung to each other,  sobbing,  terror-filled  eyes
staring through their tears.
     Mace squatted beside them and touched the girl's arm. "My  name  is  Mace
Windu. I need your help."
     The girl sniffled in astonishment. "You-you-my help?"
     Mace nodded gravely. "I need you to help me get these boys to safety. Can
you do that? Can you take the boys up the same way I came down? Climb right up
the crest. It's not steep."
     'I-I-I don't-I'm afraid-"
     Mace leaned close and spoke in her ear only a little louder than the hush
of the rain. "Me, too. But you have to act brave. Pretend. So you don't  scare
the little boys. Okay?"
     The girl scrubbed her runny nose with the back of her hand, blinking back
tears. "I-I-you're scared, too?"
     'Shh. That's a secret. Just between us. Come on, up you go."
     'Okay..." she said dubiously, but she wiped her  eyes  and  took  a  deep
breath and when she turned to the other two children her voice had  the  bossy
edge that seems to be the exclusive weapon  of  eight-year-old  girls.  "Urno,
Nykl, come on! Quit crying, you big babies! I'm going to save us."
     As the girl bullied the two boys up onto the  face  of  the  slide,  Mace
moved on to the hatchway. Though it  was  a  side  hatch,  the  angle  of  the
steamcrawler aimed it at the sky. Inside, the  'crawler's  floor  was  sharply
tilted, and the rain pounding through the  open  hatchway  slicked  the  floor
until it was impossible to climb.
     Down at the lowermost corner of the rectangular cabin, a boy  who  seemed
to be barely into his teens struggled one-handed  to  drag  a  girl  not  much
younger up the steep floor. He had a foamy wad of blood-soaked  spray  bandage
around one upper arm, and he was trying to shove the unconscious girl ahead of
him, using the riveted durasteel leg posts of  the  'crawler's  seats  like  a
ladder. But his injured arm could take no weight; tears streamed down his face
as he begged the girl to wake up, wake up, give him a little help  because  he
couldn't get her out and he wouldn't leave her, but if she'd just wake up-
     Her head lolled, limp. Mace saw she wouldn't be waking up any time  soon:
she had an ugly scalp wound above her hairline, and her fine golden  hair  was
black and sticky with blood.
     Mace leaned in through the hatchway and extended his  hand.  "All  right,
son. Just take my hand. Once we get you out of here, then I can-"
     When the boy looked up, the tearful  appeal  on  his  face  twisted  into
instant wild rage, and his plea became a fierce shriek.  Mace  hadn't  noticed
the swing-stock blaster rifle slung around his good arm; the first hint of its
existence Mace got was a burst of hot plasma past his face. He  threw  himself
backward out the hatch and flattened against the cabin wall while the hatchway
vomited blasterfire.
     The steamcrawler  lurched,  the  hatch  going  even  higher;  his  sudden
movement had been enough to tip its precarious balance, toppling it toward the
precipice.
     Mace bared his teeth  to  the  night.  With  the  Force,  he  seized  the
steamcrawler and yanked it back into place-but a squeal from above grabbed his
attention. In seizing the 'crawler he'd lost his Force-hold on the  landslide,
and the unstable mound of dirt and rock had begun to shift  under  the  little
girl and the two boys, sending them sliding down toward the lava.
     Mace calmed his hammering heart and extended one hand; he  had  to  close
his eyes for a moment to reassert his control on the slide and  stabilize  it-
but its shift had left it less solid than before. He could  hold  it  for  the
minute or two it would take the girl and boys to reach the relative safety  of
the outcrop above, not much more. And now he could feel  the  'crawler  slowly
tilting beneath him, leaning higher and higher toward the point of no return.
     From inside the cabin he could hear the boy's terrified curses,  and  his
shrieks about kill all you fragging kornos. Mace's eyes drifted closed.
     This filthy war-
     The boy and the girl in the steamcrawler were about to become  casualties
of the Summertime War... because when the boy had looked up, he could not  see
that a Jedi Master had come to his rescue.
     He could see only a Korun.
     To use the Force to disarm the boy, or persuade him, would break the hold
he kept upon the landslide, which might cost the lives of the  three  children
scrambling up its face. To reason with the boy seemed impossible-the boy would
know too much about what Balawai can expect at the hands  of  Korunnai-and  it
would certainly take longer than they had. To abandon them was not an option.
     Once he got the boy moving up  the  face  of  the  landslide  toward  the
others, he'd be able to bring the girl himself. But how to get the boy out?
     Mace spun the situation in his mind: he framed it  as  a  fight  for  the
lives of these five children. All of them. A fundamental principle of  combat:
Use what you're given. How you fight depends on  whom  you  fight.  His  first
opponent had been the volcano itself. He'd used the  power  of  the  volcano's
weapon-the lava, where it had undercut the cliff-to hold that power at bay.
     His current opponent was not the boy, but rather the boy's experience  of
the Summertime War.
     Use what you're given.
     'Kid?" Mace called, roughening his voice. Making himself  sound  the  way
the boy would expect a Korun to sound, adopting a  thick  upland  accent  like
Chalk's. "Kid: five seconds to toss that blaster out the hatch and come  after
it, you got."
     "Never!" the boy screamed from inside. "Never!"
     'Don't come out, you, and the next thing you see-the last thing you  see,
ever-is a grenade coming in. Hear me, you?"
     'Go ahead! I know what happens if we get taken alive!"
     'Kid-already got the others, don't I? The  girl.  Urno  and  Nykl.  Gonna
leave them all alone, you? With me?"
     There came a pause.
     Mace said into the silence, "Sure, go ahead and die. Any  coward  can  do
that. Guts enough to live for a while, you got?"
     He was moderately sure that a thirteen-year-old boy who'd  load  up  four
other children and set out in a steamcrawler across the Korunnai  Highland  at
night-a boy who'd rather die than leave an unconscious  girl  behind-had  guts
enough for just about anything.
     A second later, he was proven right.


     FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU

     From this doorway, I can see a spray of brilliant white  flares-headlamps
of three, no, wait, four steamcrawlers-climbing the spine of the fold, heading
for the broken track.
     Heading for us.
     Dawn will come in an hour. I hope we'll all live that long.
     The eruptions  have  subsided,  and  the  rain  has  trailed  off  to  an
intermittent patter. We've shifted some things around in the bunker. The three
younger children are curled up on scavenged blankets in the back, asleep. Besh
and Chalk now lie near the Thunderbolt, where I can keep an eye on  them;  I'm
not at all sure that one of these children might not try to do them some harm.
Terrel, a boy of thirteen who seems to be their natural leader, is  remarkably
fierce, and he still does not  entirely  believe  that  I'm  not  planning  to
torture all five of them to death. Yet even on  Haruun  Kal,  boys  are  still
boys: every time he stops worrying about being tortured to  death,  he  starts
pestering me to let him fire the Thunderbolt.
     I wonder what Nick would say about these civilians. Are they a myth, too?
Now all my work in cleaning up this compound  does  not  seem  pointless;  the
children have been through enough tonight without having to see what had  been
done to the people who'd lived here. Without having to see the kind  of  thing
that has probably been done to people they know, at their outpost.
     Possibly even to their parents.
     I can't consider such questions right now. Right now, all I  seem  to  be
able to do is stare past the twisted jags of durasteel that once had been this
bunker's door, watching the steamcrawlers' upward creep.
     I don't need any hints from the Force to have a bad feeling about this.
     In dejarik, there is a classic manuver called the fork,  where  a  player
moves a single holomonster  into  position  to  attack  two  or  more  of  his
opponent's, so that no matter which 'monster the opponent moves to safety, the
other will be eaten. Caught in the fork, one's only choice is which  piece  to
lose. The word has come to symbolize situations where the only  choice  to  be
made is a choice of disasters.
     We are well and truly forked.
     I know who these steamcrawlers are bringing: jungle prospectors from  the
same outpost as the children, fleeing the same ULF guerrillas whose attack had
forced the children away-probably the same band that destroyed this outpost. I
got the story from Terrel, while I was tending  to  his  broken  arm  and  the
girl's scalp wound.
     Their outpost had been the next one on this track, some seventy klicks to
the north and east.They had come under attack  by  the  ULF  at  dusk;Terrel's
father had given him the task of gathering the other children and driving them
to safety.
     They'd had no way to know that the ULF had been to this outpost first.
     Terrel's arm had been broken by either a bullet or a grenade fragment; he
wasn't sure which. He told me proudly how he managed the  dual-stick  controls
of the steamcrawler with only one hand, and how he had crashed  into  grassers
as he broke through the Korun skirmish line, and how he was pretty  sure  he'd
managed to run down "at least five or six fragging kornos."
     He says such things defiantly, as if daring me to hurt him for it.
     As if I ever would.
     The older girl, Keela,  has  the  most  serious  injury.  In  the  steam-
crawler's tumble down the gully, she was thrown from her seat. She has a skull
fracture and a severe concussion. I was able to salvage a  spare  medpac  from
the 'crawler before it went over the precipice. She's in no grave danger, now,
so long as she remains quiet and gets a few days' rest. The medpac had  a  new
bone stabilizer, so Terrel's arm should heal nicely. The younger children-Urno
and Nykl and the brave little girl Pell-have nothing worse than a few bruises,
and scraped hands and knees from scrambling up the landslide.
     So far.
     I have  not  bothered  to  maintain  my  pretense  of  belonging  to  the
guerrillas, though I have  also  avoided  explaining  who  I  really  am.  The
children seem to have decided that I'm a bounty hunter,  since  I  don't  "act
like a korno"-which is to say, I haven't tortured and  killed  them,  as  they
were all half expecting, based on the tales they've heard from their  parents.
As they were all half expecting despite being alive right now only  because  I
saved them. They have decided,  based  on  their  vast  experience  of  bounty
hunters-courtesy of countless half-cred holo-dramas-that Besh and Chalk are my
prisoners, and that I'm going to deliver them to Pelek Baw for a big reward.
     I have not disabused them of this notion. It's easier to believe than the
truth.
     But what should be  merely  a  childish  fancy  has  become  unexpectedly
complicated and painful; even the kindest illusion will often cut deeper  than
any truth. One of the younger boys-rather arbitrarily-decided that I  must  be
"just about the greatest bounty hunter there is." A six-year-old's instinctive
reaction, I suppose. Soon, he got into a heated discussion with  his  brother,
who insisted that "everybody knows" Jango Fett is the greatest  living  bounty
hunter. Which led the first boy to ask me if,' am Jango Fett.
     I cannot help but wonder: if I had told them I'm a Jedi, who  might  this
boy assume I am?
     I was saved from answering by a scornful declaration fromTerrel."He ain't
Jango Fett, stupid. Jango Fett's dead. Everybody knows that!"
     'Jango Fett is not dead! He is not!" Tears began to well  in  the  little
boy's eyes, and he appealed to me. "Jango Fett ain't dead, is  he?  Tell  him.
Tell him he ain't dead."
     At first, all I could think to say was "I'm sorry." And I was. I am.  But
the truth is the truth. "I'm sorry, but yes," I  told  them.  "Jango  Fett  is
dead."
     'See?" Terrel said with terrible thirteen-year-old scorn." 'Course he is,
stupid. Some stinkin' Jedi snuck up behind him and stabbed  him  in  the  back
with one of them laser swords."
     Somehow this hurt even more. "It didn't  happen  that  way.  Fett  was...
killed in a fight."
     'Tusker poop," Terrel declared. "No stinkin'  Jedi  could've  took  Jango
Fett face to face! He was the best."
     With this I could not argue; I could only contend that Fett had not  been
stabbed in the back.
     'What d'you know about it? Was you there?"
     I could not-still cannot-bring myself to tell them just how there  I  had
been.
     And I cannot properly describe the wound Terrel's tone has opened  within
me: the way he says stinking Jedi tells me more than I want to know about what
Depa has done to our Order's name on this planet. It was not so long ago  that
every adventurous boy and girl would have dreamed of being a Jedi.
     Now their heroes are bounty hunters.
     The line of steamcrawlers has halted half a kilometer below us-where  the
lava wash took out the track. This won't stop them for long;  when  the  cliff
collapsed, it made a natural dam across the break.  In  the  hours  since  the
eruption, I would guess that the lava has penetrated the rocks and  dirt,  and
cooled enough to stabilize the slide. Intelligently cautious, they're  testing
its integrity before attempting to cross. But I know  they'll  make  it.  Then
what will I do?
     It seems I have no choices left. Surrender is not an option. To save Besh
and Chalk-not to mention myself-I'll have to hold the children hostage.
     This is how far I have fallen, even I, a Jedi Master. This is what a  few
days in this war has brought me to: threatening the lives of children I  would
give my own to save.
     And if these Balawai call my bluff?
     The best outcome I can then foresee: these children will have to watch as
their parents, or their parents' friends, are killed by a Jedi.
     Best outcome-the phrase is itself a mockery. On Haruun Kal,  there  seems
to be no such thing.
     Forked.
     And yet, in dejarik, one doesn't get forked by accident. It's the  result
of a mistake in play. But where was my mistake that left us here?
     Glow rods below. They've left the  steamcrawlers  and  are  advancing  on
foot. No one has called out. They will have tried to  raise  this  outpost  on
comm; getting  no  answer,  they'll  approach  with  caution.  I  wouldn't  be
surprised if those glow rods are lashed to long sticks, to see  if  they  draw
sniper fire.
     There are a lot of them.
     Now, in desperation, I can only do as I always have, when  I  have  faced
impossible situations: I turn to Yoda's teachings for advice and  inspiration.
I can summon in my mind his wise green eyes,  and  imagine  the  tilt  of  his
wrinkled head. I can hear his voice:
     If no mistake have you made, yet losing you are... a different  game  you
should play.
     Yes.  A  different  game.  I  need  a  different  game.  New  rules.  New
objectives. And I need it in about thirty seconds.
     Terrel? Terrel, come up here. All of you. Pell, wake up the  boys.  We're
going to play a game.
     [the voice of a boy, faintly]: "What kind of game?"
     A new game. I just made it up. It's called Nobody Else Dies Today.
     [another boy's voice, faintly]: "I was 'sleep. 'S this  gonna  be  a  fun
game?"
     Only if we win.

     GAMES IN THE DARK

     These Balawai may have been irregulars, but they  were  both  experienced
and disciplined. Their recon squad entered the ruined com pound in three teams
of two, spread over 120 degrees of arc to giv them overlapping fields of fire.
While glow rods still waved halfwa along the slope below, these six entered in
total silence and dee shadow. They must have had  some  kind  of  night-vision
equipment if the Force hadn't let Mace feel the stark threat of  their weapon:
points of aim, he wouldn't have known they were there.
     He stood in impenetrable shadow, looking out between th twisted  jags  of
durasteel that were the remnants of the bunker's dooi He could feel a darkness
deeper than the night gathering upon th compound like  fog  rising  from  damp
ground. The darkness soakd in through his pores and pounded  inside  his  head
like a black mi graine.
     There had never been light bright enough to drive back darknes like this;
Mace could only hope to make of himself a light brigh enough  to  cut  through
it.
     ,' am the blade, he told himself silently.,' will have to be; there is  n
other.
     'Terrel," he said softly. "They're here. Go ahead, son."
     'You're sure? I can't see anything," Terrel  said  from  beside  him.  He
wiped his nose, then made fists as though he were holding on  to  his  courage
with both hands. "I can't see anything at all."
     'They will be able to see you," Mace said. "Call out."
     'Okay." Staying in the shadows, he repeated, "Okay," but this time  in  a
loud call. "Okay, hey, don't shoot, okay? Don't shoot! It's me!"
     The night went silent. Mace felt six weapons trained on the bunker  door.
He murmured, "Tell them who you are."
     'Yeah, uh, hey listen, it's Terrel, huh? Terrel  Nakay.  Is  my  dad  out
there?"
     A woman's voice came out of the darkness  to  Mace's  left,  shrill  with
hope. "Terrel? Oh, Terrel! Is Keela with you-?"
     The girl with the head wound held Pell and the two boys  well  back  from
the doorway, but when she heard the woman's voice she  started  unsteadily  to
her feet. "Don't go out there," Mace said.  "And  keep  the  smaller  children
still. We don't want anyone shot by accident."
     She nodded and sank back to her knees, calling out, "Mom, I'm  here!  I'm
okay!"
     'Keela! Keela-Keela-is Pell with you?"
     A man shouted from the center, "Quiet!"
     'Rankin, it's Terrel and Keela! Didn't you hear them? Keela,  what  about
Pell-"
     'Hold your position, you stupid nerf! And shut up!" the man snarled.  His
voice was ragged: angry, exhausted, and desperate. "We don't know who else  is
here! This place is completely fragged."
     'Rankin-"
     'They could be bait. Shut your mouth before I shoot you myself."
     Mace nodded to himself. He would have suspected the same thing.
     'Terrel?" The man called out in a much softer tone: warily calm. "Terrel,
it's Pek Rankin. Come on out where we can see you."
     Terrel looked at Mace. Mace said, "You know him?"
     The boy nodded. "He's-sort of a friend of my dad's. Sort of."
     'Go on, then," Mace said gently. "Move slowly. Keep your hands  in  plain
sight, away from your body."
     Terrel did. Out from the bunker door, feeling  his  way  down  the  grade
toward the shattered huts. "Can somebody put on a light? I can't see."
     'In a minute," Rankin's voice replied from the darkness. "Keep on  coming
this way, Terrel. You'll be all right. What happened  to  your  'crawler?  How
come you don't answer comm? Where are the other kids?"
     'We had an accident. But we're okay. We're all okay. Okay?" Terrel caught
his foot on a rock and stumbled. "Ow! Hey, the light, huh? I  got  one  broken
arm already."
     'Just keep walking toward my voice. Are you alone? Where  are  the  other
kids?"
     'In the bunker. But they can't come out," Terrel said. "And you can't  go
in."
     'Why's that?"
     Mace said, "Because I'm in here."
     In the Force he felt their  tension  ratchet  up,  sharp  as  an  indrawn
breath. After a moment, Rankin's voice came out  of  the  darkness.  "And  who
might you be?"
     'You don't need to know."
     'Is that so? Why don't you step out where we can get a look at you?"
     'Because the temptation to take a shot at me might  prove  overwhelming,"
Mace said. "Any bolts that miss will be bouncing around  the  inside  of  this
bunker. Where there are four more innocent children."
     A new man's voice rang out from the right, thin with fear and anger. "Two
of those kids are my sons-if you hurt them-"
     'All I have done," Mace said, "is  tend  their  injuries  and  keep  them
sheltered. What happens to them now depends on you."
     'He's telling the truth!" Terrel called. "He didn't hurt us-he saved  us.
He's okay. Really. He's just afraid you'll shoot him 'cause he's a korno!"
     A burst of low, half-strangled profanity came from the right.
     Terrel called hastily, "But he's not a real korno.  He  just  looks  like
one. He talks almost like a regular person-and he's like,  like  a,  a  bounty
hunter, or something..."
     His voice trickled off, leaving a silence empty and  ominous.  Mace  felt
currents of intention shifting and winding through the Force; the Balawai must
have been consulting in whispers on comm.
     Finally, Rankin called out once more. "So? What drr "QU want?"
     'I want you to take these children and go away from nere."
     'Huh? What else?"
     'That's all. Just take the children and go."
     'Well. Aren't you generous," Rankin said, dry. Bitter. "Listen, I'm gonna
make a light. Nobody get twitchy. I don't want to get fragged, okay?"
     Mace said, "Light will be welcome."
     Yellow-white glo1 ared behind a slab of tumbled wall, and a  cell-powered
glow  flipping through the air to land not far from Terrel's fee<- _ced,  and
rolled to a stop. Its half globe of up-angled light stretched the  surrounding
shadows toward the sky, painting them even darker.
     Terrel held a hand at his chin to shade his eyes.  "Hey,  don't  make  me
stand around alone out here, huh?"
     'Come on over here, boy." A man stepped into view, moving slowly into the
light. He held a blaster rifle in one hand, its barrel slanting dowvi,  carefi
" cted at the ground beside him. His other hand was up and forv, ^  ^alm  out.
His clothing was scorched and stained, and one whole side of his head  bore  a
clotted mass of spray bandage, the foam covering one eye. From his voice, this
was Rankin. "Get yourself under cover,''
     Terrel looked back up at the bunker. Mace said, "Go ahead, son."
     The voice of the man who'd claimed to be the boys'  father  snarled  from
the darkness. "Don't call him son, korno! You're not his father! Your stinkin'
kind killed his father-"
     "Stow that garbage!" Rankin barked, but too late: Terrel's face  crumpled
in tragic disbelief.
     'Dad?" he said, sounding stunned and lost. "My dad?"
     If eyes could shoot blaster bolts, Rankin's would have  killed  the  man.
"Get him out of here," he said. Another man, also wounded, stepped far  enough
into the light to fold Terrel in his arms and draw him away into the  ring  of
darkness.
     'Listen," Rankin said, looking up at the dark jagged mouth of the bunker.
"I guess you don't want the children hurt. Neither do  we.  But  we've  got  a
serious problem here, okay? We got our butts shot off tonight. O '' homes  are
destroyed. Half the people I  know  on  this  whole  planet  are  dead.  Those
'crawlers are stuffed with wounded, and we've got a  load  of  kornos  on  our
tails. We can't just go, get it? We can't. We need a place  to  hole  up  till
dawn, that's all."
     'You can't stay here," Mace said. "There are ULF guerrillas on their  way
here right now. Look at where you are. This place couldn't stand against  them
when it was intact."
     'It doesn't have to. Gunships fly at dawn. We can hold out till then."
     'You don't understand-"
     'Maybe I don't. So? Not your problem, is it?"
     'I have made it my problem," Mace said grimly. "You  have  no  idea  what
this place is. What it has become."
     'You know what happened here?" Rankin waved his rifle  at  the  shattered
huts. "Where is everybody?"
     'Dead," Mace said. "Killed by the ULF. All of them."
     'I don't think so. Where are the bodies? Think  I've  never  seen  a  ULF
action? I know the kind of things they do to our dead."
     'Forget the bodies." Mace tried to massage the pain from his temple  with
the heel of one hand. How could the simple decency of burying  the  dead  turn
against him? "If you're here when the guerrillas arrive, they'll kill  all  of
you, too. You care about your children's lives? Get them out of here."
     'Hey, he didn't say us," said the father's voice from the darkness.  "You
catch that, Pek? 'Kill all of you,' he says. You catch that?"
     'Shut up." Rankin didn't even glance in the father's direction. "Then why
haven't you sent out the other kids already?"
     'Because I don't know when the ULF will get here," Mace said impatiently.
"This is the only place I can defend them. And if I had sent them out already,
you'd have no reason to listen to me, would you? I'd be  just  another  korno.
One of you would have opened fire, and by now people  would  be  dead.  That's
what I'm trying to avoid. Don't you understand? We don't have time  to  argue.
On grassers, they can move as fast as a steamcrawler. Faster.  They  could  be
here right now, watching you from the jungle-"
     Rankin shook his head. "That's why we need that bunker,  you  follow?  We
gotta get our wounded where we can protect them-"
     'You can't protect them!" Mace's fists  clenched  until  his  fingernails
drew blood from his palms. Why wouldn't they understand?  He  could  feel  the
dark closing in upon them all like a strangler's noose. "Listen  to  me.  This
bunker couldn't help the people who lived here, and it can't  help  you.  Your
only hope is to take your kids and your wounded and run. All of you: run."
     'Some kinda stinkin' funny korno,"  the  father's  voice  said  from  the
shadows. "What's he so worried about us for?"
     'That's not your business," Mace said. "Your business is to get yourself,
your people, and these five children out of this place without anyone dying."
     'Maybe he's just tryin' to keep us out here where the stinkin' kornos can
get us-"
     'Didn't I tell you to shut up? Rankin angled his good eye up  toward  the
bunker. "You're askin' us to take a lot on faith, from some guy we can't  even
see."
     'You don't need to see me. All you need to see is this." With a twitch of
the Force, Mace squeezed the Thunderbolt's trigger. A single packet of  energy
screamed into the sky and burst in a spherical flash of scarlet as it  entered
a low cloud. "That could as easily have been your head. I know  exactly  where
you are. All six of you."
     He paused for a second to let that sink in. "If I  wanted  you  hurt,  we
wouldn't be talking. You'd already be dead."
     The truth of this wiped Rankin's face clean of expression.  Mace  watched
it hit home, and had just enough time to think that this might actually work-
     Then streaks of blasterfire lit up the slope below.
     The jungle thundered with scarlet  explosions,  multiple  bolts  flashing
from the cover  of  steamcrawlers  to  shatter  branches  and  blow  rocks  to
splinters. The bursts were instantly echoed by smaller,  whiter  flares  under
the trees, crackling like a bonfire built of green logs: muzzle flashes.
     Slugthrowers.
     Shouts and screams from human throats underscored the whine  of  blasters
and the shrieks of slugs hurtling in ricochets off steam-crawler armor.
     'What did I tell you?" the father shrieked from the darkness. "What did I
te,'/you? He kept us yapping and now we're getting killed down there-,'"
     'Don't do nothing stupid!" Rankin shouted. He hunched over  in  the  glow
rod's spill, his face desperate and frightened: a jacklighted ur-stag.  "Look,
nobody do nothing-"
     'Rankin!" The Force gave Mace's voice the thunder  of  a  signal  cannon.
"Pull your people back. A fighting retreat. Have them pull back  here  to  the
compound."
     Below, a steamcrawler's turret gun spewed a stream of flame across an arc
of jungle. Blood-colored light licked the bunker's ceiling.
     'You said coming up here can't help us-"
     'It can't. I can. Do it. It's your only chance."
     Behind Mace, one of the boys had started to cry, and now  the  other  one
joined him. Pell said,  "Mister?  That's  my  mom  out  there."  Her  underlip
twitched and her eyes welled. "Don't let them hurt her, okay? Don't let nobody
hurt her."
     Keela gathered Pell into her arms. "She'll be okay. Don't  worry.  She'll
be okay." Her eyes begged Mace to make this true.
     Mace stared down at them, thinking that if it were  up  to  him,  no  one
would hurt anyone. Anywhere. Ever. He said only, "Hang on. Be brave."
     Pell sniffled and nodded solemnly.
     Outside, Rankin was shouting into his comlink."-no, blast  it!  Up  here.
Flares and flame projectors. Light 'em up and  slow  'em  down-and  get  those
'crawlers in gear!"
     'Rankin, don't!" the father shouted. "Don't you get  it?  Once  we're  up
here, he can crossfire our butts from the bunker!"
     'Don't be stupid-"
     "Space your don't-be-stupid talk! You know what's stupid? Talking to that
korno like he's a human being! Believing one fraggin'  word  he  says,  that's
stupid! Want to talk to the kornos? Talk with your gun."
     A star burst to life below and shot high into the air: a flare.  It  hung
below the clouds, lighting the steamcrawlers,  the  jungle,  and  the  outpost
stark actinic white. Mace had to shield his eyes against the sudden glare, and
he heard the father's  harsh  cry  of  triumph,  and  the  Force  snapped  his
lightsaber to his hand and brought the blade to life as a blaster rifle sang a
rhythm fast as a hand could squeeze.
     The father was no marksman; no bolt would have come within  arm's  length
of Mace-but they would have bounced into the bunker. Amethyst light flashed to
meet the red, and instead every bolt screamed away into the sky.
     Mace stood in the doorway, looking down at Rankin's awestruck  face  past
the guard angle of his lightsaber's blade. Rankin's mouth moved in  breathless
silence: Jedi...
     Mace thought: Looks like we lose.
     'Keela," Mace said without turning, his voice tight but dead level.  "Get
the children to the back. Lie down behind the bodies of the Korunnai: they are
your best cover."
     'What?" Keela stared at him blankly. "What? Who are you?"
     From outside, the father's voice roared,  "That's  a  Jedi!"  An  instant
later, it was joined by another voice: higher, half broken, hoarse with grief,
betrayal, and wild rage.
     'A stinkin'Jedi! He's a stinkin'Jedi! Kill him! Kill him!"
     The voice was Terrel's.
     The Force moved Mace's hands faster than thought. Depa's lightsaber  went
to his left hand, to mirror his own in his right, and  together  they  wove  a
wall across the mouth of the  bunker,  catching  and  scattering  a  flood  of
blasterfire.
     Bolts splintered off in all directions; the  erratic  staccato  of  badly
aimed shots took all his concentration  and  skill  to  intercept.  Mace  sank
deeper and deeper into the Force, surrendering more and more of his  conscious
thought to the instinctive whirl of Vaapad, and even  so  some  bolts  slipped
past him and whanged randomly around the inside of the bunker.
     He was too deep in Vaapad to make a plan, too deep even to think, but  he
was a Jedi Master: he didn't have to think.
     He knew.
     If he stayed in this doorway, the children would die.
     One step at a time, to give the shooters time to adjust their  aim,  Mace
leaned into the gale of blasterfire and started down the exposed  slope  below
the door. His blades flashing in blinding whirls of jungle green  and  sundown
purple, spraying a spiked fan of deflected  bolts  toward  the  smoke-shrouded
stars, he drew their fire down, away from the bunker's door. Away  from  their
own children.
     One step, then another.
     He was aware, in an abstract, disconnected way, of an ache  in  his  arms
and the salt sting of sweat trickling into his  eyes.  He  was  aware  of  hot
slashes of blaster grazes along his flanks, and of a chunk that had been  torn
from one thigh by a glancing hit. All these meant less to  him  than  the  new
vectors of fire as he continued his relentless march and the jups  broke  from
cover. He was also aware that  not  all  the  jups  were  shooting;  he  heard
Rankin's desperate orders to cease fire, and felt in the Force  an  irrational
blood hunger that kept the others squeezing triggers until their weapons began
to smoke.
     A blood hunger fed by the dark.
     No. Not blood hunger.
     Blood fever.
     He felt people moving on all sides  of  him,  new  people,  shooting  and
shouting and stumbling among the shattered  huts.  He  felt  their  panic  and
fierce rage and the breathless desperation of their retreat.  Massive  shadows
loomed in the Force, lumbering behemoths that  roared  with  voices  of  fire:
steamcrawlers backing into the ruined compound, treads crushing tumbled  slabs
of prefab walls, grinding the dirt over graves that Mace had  dug  only  hours
before.
     The compound flooded with smoke and flame, with flashes of blaster  bolts
and snarls of hypersonic slugs. Mace paced  through  it  all  with  relentless
calm, his only expression a slight frown of concentration, his blades  weaving
an impenetrable web of lightning. He gave more and more of himself over to the
Force, letting it move his hands, his feet, letting it guide him  through  the
battle.
     The dark power he had felt gather in the Force now  rose  around  him  to
swallow the stars; it broke over him in a wave that pushed him down and caught
him up and when he felt a hostile presence lunge toward his  back  he  whirled
with effortless speed and  amethyst  light  splashed  fire  through  the  long
durasteel blade of a knife held in a small hand. A sliced-off piece  skittered
across the ground and green energy dropped like an ax for the kill-
     And stopped, trembling-
     One centimeter above a brown-haired head.
     Brown hairs curled, crisped, and blackened  in  green  fire.  A  stub  of
knife, its new-cut edge still glowing hot,  dropped  from  a  nerveless  hand.
Stunned brown  eyes,  streaming  tears  that  sparkled  with  brilliant  green
highlights, stared up at him from either side of Depa's blade.
     'Stinkin','i? <fz,"Terrel sobbed. "Go on an' kill  me.  Go  on  an'  kill
everybody-"
     'You're not safe out here," Mace said. He threw himself backward and with
a shove of the Force sent Terrel skidding toward the door of the bunker. A jet
of flame howled through the space where they had stood.
     Mace rolled to his feet, blades angled defensively before him, looking up
at the looming turret gun of a steamcrawler as  it  traversed  to  track  him.
Someone inside had decided it would be worth Terrel's life to take  out  Mace.
Mace didn't much care for that kind of math. He had a  different  equation  in
mind.
     Four steamcrawlers divided by one Jedi equals one huge  smoking  pile  of
scrap.
     The shatterpoints of the  'crawlers  were  obvious:  neither  the  linked
treads nor the traverse gears that rotated the turrets would stand  against  a
single swipe of a lightsaber. In less than a  second  apiece,  he  could  turn
these armored behemoths into nothing  more  than  hollow  metal  rocks-but  he
didn't.
     Because that wouldn't hurt enough.
     He wanted to hurt them worse than this black migraine was hurting him.
     These people had attacked him when all he wanted was to help  them.  When
he had been trying to save them. They had  attacked  him  without  regard  for
their own lives, or the lives of their children. They'd almost made  him  kill
one of their children himself.
     They were stupid. They were evil. They deserved to be punished.
     They deserved to die.
     He saw it all in a single burst of image:  a  memory  of  something  that
hadn't happened yet. He saw himself dive headfirst under the steamcrawler  and
flip to his back, his twin  blades  carving  through  the  'crawler's  lightly
armored undercarriage. He'd come up in the passenger compartment, where one or
two armed men might be guarding the wounded; he'd use their own blasterfire to
take them out. Then cut his way into the cabin, take out the driver-then  he'd
wash the compound in flame projected from the steamcrawler's turret  gun;  the
jups on foot would run and shriek as they burned. Then he would use the  Force
to flip his lightsabers through the air to carve gaps  in  the  armor  of  the
other steamcrawler, gaps through  which  his  turret  gun  would  pour  flame,
roasting drivers and passengers and  wounded-thick  meat-scented  smoke  would
billow out the hatches...
     They'd all die. Every single one of them.
     It wouldn't take him a full minute.
     And he'd enjoy it.
     He was already running toward the steamcrawler, gathering himself for the
headlong dive, when he finally thought, What am I doing?
     He barely managed to turn his dive into  a  spring  instead.  He  flipped
upward through the air to land poised on the steamcrawler's outer deck  beside
the flame-gun turret. He let himself fall prone to the deck, using its bulk to
cover him against blasterfire from the Balawai on the ground,  and  his  whole
body sagged as he tried to pull his mind back out from the Force.
     It was too dark here. Too dark everywhere: thick  and  blinding,  choking
like the black smoke plume from the volcano's mouth above. He  could  find  no
light at all except the red flame that burned in his heart. His  head  pounded
as though he were the one with fever  wasps  hatching  inside  his  brain.  As
though his skull were cracking open.
     Fatigue and pain rushed  him,  barreling  him  toward  unconscious  ness;
drawing upon the Force to sustain himself drew in rage as well.  He  clung  to
the 'crawler's deck, pressing his face  into  the  hot  bullet-scarred  armor.
Every second he could hold himself still was another second for some of  these
men and women to live.
     A howl welled up inside him: a roar of dark fury raised to the  level  of
exaltation. He locked his teeth against it, but it rang in  his  ears  anyway,
echoing across the mountainside like akks calling with the voice of the  blood
fever itself-
     Mace's breath caught in his throat. A voice inside him-how could it echo?
     He raised his head.
     That howling was akk voices after all.
     They came up from the jungle, climbing the steep lava-cut  sides  of  the
outcrop, massive claws gouging furrows in the stone.  Five,  eight,  a  dozen:
gigantic, armored, cowl spines bristling in full threat display,  white  foamy
ropes of slaver looping from the corners of their dagger-toothed mouths.
     Heavily armed Balawai fell back before them.  The  akks  moved  with  the
deliberate speed of creatures who had nothing  to  fear.  Steamcrawler  turret
guns hosed them down with flame; they ignored  it.  They  shrugged  aside  the
minor stings of blaster hits. When they reached the crown of the outcrop, they
began to pace around the outpost's perimeter,  circling  the  shattered  huts;
their pace became a trot, then a gallop: a ring of armored predator, gradually
tightening.
     Mace recognized akk herding behavior: as though the Balawai  were  unruly
grassers, the akks were forcing them into a single crowd in the central common
area of the compound like a corral, working by pure intimidation. Any  Balawai
who tried to escape the ring was slammed back into  it  by  the  twitch  of  a
massive shoulder or the sweep of an armored tail. No  akk  put  its  teeth  on
human flesh; even one jup who fired  his  rifle  point  blank  into  an  akk's
throat-uselessly-received only a buffet from jaws that could  as  easily  have
bitten him in half.
     Mace felt the dark thunder rising in the Force and he knew: the  compound
hadn't become a corral. It had become a slaughter pen.
     A killing ground.
     And then he felt the shadow of the butcher.
     Mace looked upslope: there  he  was,  standing  on  the  rock  above  the
bunker's door.
     A Korun.
     In the Force, he burned with power.
     Huge: his sweat-glistening bare chest could have been fused together from
granite boulders. His shaven skull gleamed more than two meters above his bare
feet. His pants were crudely sewn from a vine cat's pelt. He raised arms  like
a spacescraper's buttresses over his head.
     To each forearm was strapped some kind of shield: elongated teardrops  of
a mirror-polished metal. Their wide-curved ends extended  around  his  massive
fists, and they tapered to needle points a handspan behind his elbows.
     Veins writhed in his forearms as his fists tightened. The  edges  of  the
shields blurred, and a high evil whine resonated in Mace's teeth.
     The akk dogs turned to the man as though this were some kind  of  signal.
As one, dogs and man together lifted their heads to the  smothered  stars  and
unleashed another dark blood-fever howl. It hummed in  Mace's  chest,  and  he
felt the echoing answer it drew from his own rage, and he finally understood.
     The rage wasn't all his.
     His blood fever was an answer his heart gave to the call of  the  jungle.
To the howl of the akks.
     To the power of this man.
     The Balawai had not run here of their own  will;  they  had  been  driven
here, herded to ground that had been soaked in violence and malice and  savage
blood fever only days before. What had  been  done  in  this  place  had  been
deliberate, the dark mirror image of a religious sanctification. The  massacre
here had been only a preparation, to prime the jungle for this dark rite.
     Mace knew him now: this must be the lorpelek.
     This was Kar Vaster.
     His arms swept downward, and from beyond the ring of circling akks  leapt
six Korunnai, springing as high as Jedi but  without  Jedi  grace.  The  Force
thrust that propelled them felt like a grunt of pain. They flailed  as  though
they clawed their way through the  air,  but  they  landed  coiled,  balanced,
crouched to attack. All six were dressed identically to Vastor, and each  bore
those twin teardrop shields that snarled like overdriven comm speakers.
     The Balawai met them with a  storm  of  blasterfire.  Bolts  flashed  and
splattered and splintered upward into the clouds as the twin shields each  man
bore moved faster than thought.
     The Balawai stopped firing.
     Not a single Korun had fallen. Their  flashing  shields  had  intercepted
every bolt.
     They could only have learned this from a Jedi.
     From one particular Jedi.
     Oh, no, Mace thought.
     Oh, Depa, no...
     On the rock above, the lor pelek spread his corded arms, leaning out over
the drop, toppling as though he thought he could fly-then at the last  instant
he sprang forward into a dive that carried him toward the center of the  crowd
of Balawai, where they massed around the steamcrawlers.
     The killing began.

     LOR PELEK

     The  Korunnai  waded in without waiting for Vastor to land.  They  sprang
among the mass of Balawai and swung those teardrop shields in  short,  vicious
arcs, angled flat as though to cut with their edges-
     And cut they did.
     Their sizzling edges bit through blasters  with  tooth-grinding  squeals;
they slashed through flesh with  a  meaty  squelch,  and  the  blood  on  them
shivered to mist. Scarlet clouds trailed them like smoke. Mace saw a  man  cut
in half, and the shield  came  out  his  other  side  still  shining  like  an
ultrachrome mirror.
     Shining like a vibro-ax.
     Vastor touched down in the middle of the compound and rolled out  of  his
fall without slowing. He flashed into an inhumanly fast sprint toward the very
steamcrawler atop which Mace lay. Vastor's sprint became a headlong dive  that
carried him sliding between the treads.
     The steamcrawler's armor hummed under Mace's hands, and a harsher  squeal
joined the chorus of snarling shields; he had to bite back an  obscenity  he'd
learned from Nick.
     Vastor was cutting through the 'crawler's undercarriage.
     Had he stolen that dark dream right out of Mace's head?
     Mace popped to his feet and both his lightsabers hummed to life. He  felt
Vaster in the Force: a torch that flared with darkness. He was almost  through
the undercarriage; once inside, he'd be loose among  the  wounded.  The  Force
showed him how the wounded men  and  women  inside  the  crawler  had  already
pressed themselves away from the shining blades that sliced upward from below.
     Mace decided it was time he introduced himself to this lor pelek.
     He sprang into the air, flipping high over the steamcrawler's  turret  to
land on its flat mid-deck armor directly above Vaster. A twitch of  the  Force
reversed his grips so that the lightsabers' blades projected downward from his
fists. Then he dropped to his knees, twisting to swing the blades in a  circle
around him.
     A vibroshield is not the only thing that can cut steamcrawler armor.
     A disk of that armor-edges still glowing from the lightsabers' cuts, Mace
still kneeling  in  its  center-dropped  straight  down  like  a  free-falling
turbolift.
     Mace heard one explosive obscenity from below before he and the  disk  of
armor flattened Kar Vaster like a fusion-powered pile driver.
     The interior of the steamcrawler was crowded with wounded men and  women.
One of them brandished a heavy blaster; Mace slashed it in two with a flip  of
his lightsaber. "No shooting," he said, and the Force made his  words  into  a
command that sent several other blasters clattering to the floor.
     Vaster lay pinned facedown to the deck, half stunned.
     Mace leaned close to his ear. "Kar Vaster, I am Mace Windu.  Stand  down.
That's an order."
     A twitch of the Force was his only warning, but for Mace it was more than
he needed. He threw himself into a back flip a quarter of a second before  the
disk of armor slammed upward to smash against the  ceiling  with  a  deafening
clank. Before it could fall again, Vaster was on his feet. Then  as  the  disk
dropped, an ultrachrome flame licked through it, slicing it in half.
     The pieces rattled back down through the  hole  Vaster  had  cut  in  the
undercarriage.
     Vaster faced Mace across the hole. Darkness pulsed at  Mace  through  the
Force, but on the, lor pelek's face was not anger, but instead inhuman focus: a
primal ferocity like a krayt dragon surprised over the corpse of a bantha.
     The way he had shrugged Mace off,  the  slicing  of  the  armor  disk:  a
predator's dominance display.
     He raised his shield-clad hands in salute  and  rumbled  something  in  a
language that Mace didn't recognize-it didn't even sound like language at all:
more like the growls and snarls of jungle beasts.
     But as Vaster spoke, some power of the lor pelek's unfurled his  meaning
inside Mace's mind.
     Mace Windu, the lor pelek had said. An honor. Why do you interfere in  my
kill?
     'There is no kill," Mace said. "Do you understand me? No  kill.  No  more
killing."
     Vastor's smile was disbelieving. No? Then what do you propose?  Shall  we
lay down our arms? He beckoned invitingly with one sizzling shield. You first.
     The zings of blaster ricochets and the roar of steamcrawler  turret  guns
came clearly through  the  gaps  in  the  'crawler's  armor.  "No  unnecessary
killing," Mace amended. "No more massacres."
     Vastor's response had a quality of animal directness, straightforward and
uncomplicated. Massacres are necessary, doshalo.
     'You and I are not doshallai." Mace angled his lightsabers in a defensive
X. "You are no clan brother of mine."
     Vaster shrugged. Where are Besh and Chalk?
     'In the bunker," Mace answered without thinking, his mind still  whirling
around the concept of a necessary massacre.
     Vaster swept the wounded men and women in the steamcrawler's cabin with a
contemptuous glare. These will keep, doshalo. They cannot escape.  Follow  me.
With a rush of the Force, he sprang straight upward through the hole Mace  had
cut.
     That same rush of the Force tugged  at  Mace's  will,  inclining  him  to
follow without thinking-but he understood now the power of this place, and  of
Vaster himself.
     'You'll have to do better than that," Mace muttered.
     He turned his attention to the terrified Balawai around him. He gestured,
and all the discarded blasters flipped from the deck to hang in midair; with a
single swift flourish he sliced every one of them in  half,  then  cast  their
pieces out the hole. "Listen to me, all of you. You must surrender. It is your
only hope."
     'Hope of what?" a man said bitterly. His face was gray; he wore  a  bacta
patch over a chest wound and clutched the stump of his wrist just above a  wad
of spray bandage that served him for a tourniquet. "We know  what  happens  if
we're captured."
     'Not this time," Mace said: "If you fight, they will  kill  you.  If  you
surrender I can keep you alive. And I will."
     'We're supposed to just take your word for it?"
     'I am a Jedi Master."
     The man spat blood on the deck. "We know what that's worth."
     'Obviously you don't." In the Force, Mace felt the dark  flame  that  was
the lor pelek fighting his way upslope toward the bunker. For  an  instant  he
was almost grateful-he'd be happy to leave the defense of Chalk  and  Besh  in
Vastor's hands-but then he remembered the children. The  children  were  still
inside.
     Where Vastor was going.
     Massacres are necessary.
     'I won't argue." Mace moved to the rim of the hole Vastor  had  cut,  and
looked up through the one he'd cut himself, judging his clearance. "Fight to a
sure death, or surrender to a hope of life. The choice is yours," he said, and
threw himself upward into the burning night.
     The whole compound was on fire: choking black smoke swirled above blazing
lakes of flame-projector fuel. Blaster  bolts  flashed  through  every  angle,
their bursts an arrhythmic drumbeat under the  howling  chorus  of  the  Korun
shield-weapons. Vastor bounded up the  slope  toward  the  bunker  in  erratic
zigzagging leaps, his shields flashing: catching stray bolts,  carving  metal,
slashing flesh.
     Mace dived from the top of the steamcrawler, flipped in the air, and  hit
the ground running. His blades wove a green and purple corona  of  power  that
splintered blasterfire into the sky.
     A knot of Balawai huddled on their knees a few  meters  to  the  left  of
Mace's path, their hands finger-laced on the backs of their heads. Eyes closed
against the horror around them, they screamed  for  mercy  to  a  gore-smeared
Korun whose face held nothing human. The Korun raised twin  shields  shrilling
over his head, and with a roar of  dark  exultation  he  plunged  them  toward
defenseless necks-
     But before he could land the blow, the sole of a boot slammed  his  spine
so hard that he flipped completely over and landed on his head.
     The Korun sprang to his feet, unhurt and raging.  "Kick  me?  Gonna  die,
you! Gonna die-"
     He stopped, because to move another centimeter  would  have  brought  his
nose in contact with the rock-steady purple lightsaber blade poised  in  front
of his face. At the other end of that blade stood Mace Windu.
     'Yes, I will," he said. "But not today."
     The Korun's expression curdled like sour grasser milk. "Must be the Windu
Jedi, you," he said in Koruun. "Depa's sire."
     The word gave Mace a twinge; in Koruun, sire could mean  either  "master"
or "father." Or both. He spoke in his rusty Koruun. "Don't kill  not-fighters,
you. Kill not-fighters andjyow die."
     The Korun snorted. "Talk like a Balawai, you," he spat in  Basic.  "Don't
take your orders, I."
     Mace twitched his lightsaber. The Korun's eyes flickered.  Mace  returned
to Basic as well. "If you want to live, believe what I say:  what  happens  to
them will happen to you."
     'Tell it to Kar Vastor," the Korun sneered.
     'I intend to." Before the Korun could reply, Mace whirled and sprang  for
the bunker's door.
     Mace didn't trouble with the distractions that had made Vastor's path jag
like a bolt of lightning; he went straight for the door's  shattered  gape  as
though launched from a cannon. He reached it only steps behind the larger man.
     And froze.
     Froze despite the chilling  whine  of  those  teardrop  shields,  despite
Vastor's rumbling snarl like the hunting-cough of a hungry vine cat. Despite a
sound Mace could no more ignore than he could  reverse  the  rotation  of  the
planet: the shrieks of children screaming in terror.
     The burning compound below lit the bunker's ceiling with  shifting  light
the color of blood, casting Mace's shadow huge and  wavering,  indistinct  but
utterly black: a shadow that shrouded all within. The  only  light  that  fell
upon the core of his shadow was the unnatural wash of mingled green and purple
glare from his lightsabers.
     Vaster stood within, hunched like a gundark, his right arm drawn back  to
strike. Dangling from hair tangled in Vastor's left fist, feet  kicking  above
the floor, sobbing uncontrollably about how all you  stinkin  kornos  have  to
die, was Terrel.
     'Vastor, stop!" Mace opened himself to the full flood of the  Force,  and
used it to hammer at the lorpeleKs will. "Don't do it, Kar. Put the boy down."
     He might as well have not bothered; Vastor's answering  snarl  translated
in Mace's mind as When I am done with him. The  shield  strapped  to  Vastor's
left arm made a mirrored halo over Terrel's head, but  now  the  other  angled
toward where Besh and Chalk lay. Look there, and see what sort of  creature  I
hold.
     'He's not some creature," Mace responded with reflexive certainty.  "He's
a boy. His name... his name is..." His voice trailed away as his eyes  finally
made sense of what Vastor was pointing at. "Terrel..."
     Besh and Chalk lay on the stone floor midway between where  Vastor  stood
holding Terrel and where Keela, Pell, and the two younger  boys  cowered.  The
clothing of the thanatizine-bound Korunnai appeared inexplicably rumpled, even
tattered, and over their torsos it glistened a wet oily black. A  full  second
passed before Mace realized that it was the light from his blades that  robbed
color from the wet gleam on their clothes; he figured it  out  by  the  smell,
strong even through the reek of the burning compound outside.
     It was the smell of blood.
     Someone had been hacking, inexpertly but with considerable enthusiasm, at
the two helpless Korunnai.
     Hacking at two human beings Mace had sworn to protect.
     Hacking at sad Besh, who could not speak. Who'd  lost  his  brother  only
yesterday.
     Hacking at fierce Chalk, the girl who had made herself strong  enough  to
survive anything. Anything but this.
     They had lain down in this cold bunker floor and taken into  their  veins
the drug that had swallowed them in a false death, trusting that a Jedi Master
would watch over them to prevent a real one.
     On the floor below Terrel's dangling feet was  a  short  stub  of  knife,
smeared with the same dark blood. The blade was only half  a  decimeter  long,
its tip now a sharp straight slant-
     Terrel's knife. The one Mace had sliced in half on the slope outside.
     Strength drained from Mace's knees. "Oh, Terrel," he  said,  letting  his
lightsabers swallow their blades. "Terrel, what have you done?"
     Don't worry, was the meaning of Vastor's rumbling growl. He won't  do  it
again.
     Mace threw himself into a Force-spring, both his blades blazing  to  life
again as he streaked through the darkness toward  Vastor's  back-and  in  that
instant he saw himself arguing again with Nick on the trail, heard  again  his
orders within this shattered bunker, saw the  steamcrawler  carrying  children
teeter at the lip of the precipice, saw Rankin step into the circle of  light,
faced Vastor inside a steamcrawler crowded with wounded. He couldn't see  what
he should have done  differently-what  he  could  have  done  differently  and
remained the Jedi he was-to lead to any  moment  other  than  this  one:  this
moment where he knew already he would be too  late,  too  slow,  too  old  and
tired, too beaten down by the inexplicable cruelties of jungle war-
     Too useless to save the life of one single child.
     Mace could only roar a futile denial as Vastor struck.  The  vi-broshield
sank deep into Terrel's body. And as the lorpelek ripped the life out  of  the
boy, the blood fever told Mace what he should have done differently.
     man, only a man; a man of power, to be sure, but no longer the embodiment
of the jungle's darkness. Terrel had been a boy, merely a child,  yes,  but  a
boy whose dead arms were still wet to the elbow with the blood  of  Chalk  and
Besh.
     Until now, Mace had looked at them-at this whole world, and all  that  he
had seen within it-with Jedi eyes: seeing abstract patterns of  power  in  the
swirling chiaroscuro of the Force, a punctuated rhythm of good and  evil.  His
Jedi eyes had found him only what he'd already been looking for.
     Without knowing it, he'd been seeking an enemy. Someone he  could  fight.
Someone who would stand in for this war.
     Someone he could blame for it.
     Someone he could kill.
     Now, though-
     He looked at Vaster with his own eyes, truly open for the first time.
     Vaster looked back intently. After a moment, the lor pelek relaxed with a
sigh, lowering his weapons. You have decided to let me live, was  the  meaning
of his wordless grumble. For now.
     Mace said, "I am sorry."
     For what? Vaster looked frankly puzzled. When Mace  did  not  answer,  he
shrugged. Now that I may safely show you my back, I  will  go.  The  fight  is
over. I must deal with our captives.
     He turned toward the bunker's door. Mace spoke  to  his  back.  "I  won't
allow you to kill prisoners."
     Vaster stopped, glancing back over his shoulder. Who said anything  about
killing prisoners? One of my men? His eyes took a feral gleam from  the  light
of Mace's blades. Never mind. I know who it was. Leave him to me.
     Without another word, Vaster stalked out into the firelit night.
     Mace stood in the flickering dark, his only  light  the  shine  from  his
blades. After a time, his hands went numb on the handgrips' activation plates,
and his blades shrank to nothingness.
     Now the only light was the bloody glow on the bunker's  ceiling  cast  by
the fires outside.
     He noted absently that Besh and Chalk hadn't bled much from their wounds.
The thanatizine, he guessed.
     A low whimper from behind reminded him of the  children.  He  turned  and
looked down at them. They quivered in a group hug so  tight  he  couldn't  see
where one child ended and the next began. None of them returned his stare.  He
could feel their terror through the Force: they were afraid to meet his eyes.
     He wanted to tell them that they had nothing to fear, but that would be a
lie. He wanted to tell them that he wouldn't let anyone hurt  them.  That  was
another lie: he already had. None of  them  would  ever  forget  seeing  their
friend killed by a Korun.
     None of them would ever forget seeing a Jedi let that Korun walk away.
     There were so many things he should say that he could only  keep  silent.
There were so many things he should do that he could only  stand  holding  his
powered-down lightsabers.
     When all choices seem wrong, choose restraint.
     And so he stood motionless.
     'Master Windu?" The voice was familiar, but it seemed to come  from  very
far away; or perhaps it was only an echo of memory. "Master Windu!"
     He stood staring into an invisible distance until a strong hand took  his
arm. "Hey, Mace!"
     He sighed. "Nick. What do you want?"
     'It's almost dawn. Gunships fly with the light. It won't take  them  long
to get here. Time to saddle-" Nick's voice stopped as though he  were  choking
on something. "Frag me. What did you-I mean, what did they-who would-how-?"
     His voice ran down. Mace finally turned to face  the  young  Korun.  Nick
stared speechlessly down at the bloody messes that were Besh and Chalk.
     'The thanatizine  has  slowed  their  hemorrhaging,"  Mace  said  softly.
"Someone who's good with a medpac's tissue binder might still be able to  save
their lives."
     'And-and-and-are those children-?"
     him to the father of the two young boys. When Mace told him that Urno and
Nykl were still alive and as safe as any Balawai here could be, the man  burst
into tears.
     Relief or terror: Mace could not tell.
     Tears are tears.
     Mace could summon no sympathy for him. He could not forget that this  was
the man who had fired the first shot into the bunker. Nor could  he  pass  any
sort of judgment upon him; he could not say that if  this  man  had  held  his
fire, any of the dead here would instead be alive.
     Rankin was not among the captives. Nor was the girls' mother.
     Mace knew neither had escaped.
     Rankin... Though he and Mace could not have trusted each other, they  had
been, however briefly, on the same side. They had  both  been  trying  to  get
everyone out of here without anyone dying.
     Rankin had paid the price of that failure.
     Perhaps Mace had started paying it as well.
     One more question to one more captive, and then the akks moved aside  for
him again.
     Vaster was nearby, growling and barking and snarling  the  Korunnai  into
groups organized for the withdrawal. In his disconnected state, Mace  felt  no
surprise to discover that he could not now understand the lor pelek.  Vastor's
voice had become jungle noise,  freighted  with  meaning  but  indecipherable.
Inhuman^ Impersonal.
     Lethal.
     ... not because the jungle kills you, Nick had said. Just because  it  is
what it is.
     Mace put out a hand to stop Vaster as the lor pelek swept by  him.  "What
will you do with the captives?"
     Vaster rumbled wordlessly in  his  throat,  and  now  again  his  meaning
unfurled in Mace's mind. They come with us.
     'You can take care of prisoners?"
     We don't take care of them. We give them to the jungle.
     'The tan pel'trokal," Mace murmured. "Jungle justice." Somehow, this made
perfect sense. Though he could not approve, he could not help but understand.
     Vastor nodded as he turned to move on.,'/ is our way.
     'Is that different from murder?" Though Mace was looking  at  Vastor,  he
sounded like he was asking himself. "Can any of them survive? Cast out  alone,
without supplies, without weapons-"
     The lor pelek gave Mace a predator's grin over his shoulder, showing  his
needle-sharp teeth. I did, he growled, and walked away.
     'And the children?"
     But Mace was talking to the lorpeleKs departing back; Vastor was  already
snapping at three or four ragged young Korunnai. What  he  might  be  ordering
them to do,  Mace  couldn't  say;  Vastor's  meaning  had  departed  with  his
attention.
     Mace drifted in the  direction  the  last  captive  he'd  spoken  to  had
indicated. He stopped at the edge of a smoldering  puddle  of  flame-projector
fuel. It had burned nearly out; black coils of smoke twisted upward from  only
a few patches of dawn-paled flame.
     A step or two in from the edge of the puddle lay a body.
     It lay on its side, curled in the characteristic fetal burn-victim  ball.
One of its arms seemed to  have  escaped  its  general  contraction.  The  arm
pointed at the near rim of the puddle's scorch mark, palm-down, as though this
corpse had died trying to drag itself, one-handed, from the flames.
     Mace couldn't even tell if it had been a man, or a woman.
     He squatted on his heels at the edge of  the  scorch,  staring.  Then  he
wrapped his arms around his knees, and just  sat.  There  didn't  seem  to  be
anything else to do.
     He had asked that last captive where she'd last seen the girls' mother.
     He could not possibly determine if this corpse had once  been  the  woman
who'd given birth to Pell and to Keela; if this smoking mass of  charred  dead
flesh had held them in its arms and kissed away their childish tears.
     Did it matter?
     This had been someone's parent, or brother, or sister.  Someone's  child.
Someone's friend.
     Who had died anonymously in the jungle.
     He couldn't even tell if this corpse had been killed by a Korun bul  let,
or a vibroshield, or a Balawai blaster. Or  if  it  had  simply  been  unlucky
enough to get in the way of a stream of fire  from  a  steam-crawler's  turret
gun.
     Perhaps in the Force, he might have been able to sense some answers.  But
he couldn't decide if knowing would be better than not knowing. And  to  touch
the Force again in this dark place was a risk he was not prepared to take.
     So he just sat, and thought about the dark.
     Sat while the guerrillas splintered into bands that melted away down  the
mountainside. Sat while the prisoners were marched off in a  gang,  surrounded
by akk dogs. Sat while the sun slanted past a pair of northeast peaks,  and  a
wave of light rolled down the slope above him.
     Vastor came to him, rumbling something about leaving  this  place  before
the gunships arrived. Mace did not even look up.
     He was thinking about the light of the sun, and how it did not touch  the
darkness in the jungle.
     Nick stopped on his way out of camp. In one arm, he  carried  Urno;  Nykl
slept against his other shoulder, tiny arms clasped  around  his  neck.  Keela
stumbled along behind, one hand pressing against the spray bandage that closed
her head wound while she used the other to lead little Pell.  Nick  must  have
asked Mace a question, because he paused at the side of  the  Jedi  Master  as
though waiting for an answer.
     But Mace had no answers to give.
     When he got no response, Nick shrugged and moved on.
     Mace thought about the dark. The Jedi metaphor of the dark  side  of  the
Force had never seemed so appropriate before-less the dark of  evil  than  the
dark of a starless night: where what you think is a vine cat is only  a  bush,
and what appears to be a tree may very well be a killer  standing  motionless,
waiting for you to look away.
     Mace had read Temple Archive accounts written by Jedi who had brushed the
dark and recovered. These accounts often mentioned how the dark side seemed to
make everything clear; Mace knew now that this was only a delusion. A lie.
     The truth was exactly opposite.
     There was so much dark here, he might as well be blind.
     Morning sun struck the compound, and brought gunships  with  it:  six  of
them, a double flight, roaring straight in from the stinging glare  of  Al'har
as it cleared the mountains. Their formation blossomed into a rosette as  they
peeled off to angle for staggered, crisscrossing strafing runs.
     Mace still didn't move.
     Might as well be blind, he thought, and perhaps he also said it aloud-
     For the voice that spoke from behind him seemed to be answering.
     'The wisest man I know once told me:,'/ is in the darkest night that  the
light we are shines brightest."
     A woman's voice, cracking with exhaustion and hoarse  with  old  pain-and
perhaps it was only this voice that could have kindled a torch in Mace's  vast
darkness, only this voice that could have brought Mace to his  feet,  turning,
hope blooming inside his head, almost happy-
     Almost even smiling-
     He turned, his arms opening, his breath catching, and all  he  could  say
was, "Depa..."
     But she did not come to his embrace, and the hope  inside  him  sputtered
and died. His arms fell to his sides. Even prepared by what Nick had told him,
he was not remotely ready for this.
     Jedi Master Depa Billaba stood before him in  the  tattered  remnants  of
Jedi robes, stained with mud and blood and jungle sap. Her hair-that had  once
been a lush, glossy mane as black as space, that she had  kept  regimented  in
mathematically precise  braids-was  tangled,  spiked  with  dirt  and  grease,
raggedly short as though she had hacked it off with a knife. Her face was pale
and lined with fatigue, and had gone so thin her  cheekbones  stood  out  like
blades. Her mouth seemed lipless and hard, and bore a fresh burn scar from one
corner to the tip of her chin-but these were not the worst of it.
     None of these were what kept Mace motionless  as  though  nailed  to  the
ground, even as  gunships  swept  overhead  and  rained  blaster-fire  on  the
compound around them.
     In the inferno of explosions, amid the whine of rock  splinters  and  the
hammering webwork of plasma, Mace could only stare at Depa's  forehead,  where
she had once worn the shining golden bead of the Greater Mark of Illumination:
the symbol of a Chalactan adept. The Mark of Illumination is  affixed  to  the
frontal bone of an adept's skull by the elders of that ancient religion, as  a
symbol of the Uncloseable Eye that is the highest expression of the  Chalactan
Enlightenment. Depa had worn hers with pride for twenty years.
     Now, where the Mark had been was only an ugly ripple of keloid  scar,  as
though the same knife that had slashed away her hair had  crudely  hacked  the
symbol of her ancestral religion from the bone of her skull.
     And across her eyes, she wore a strip of rag tied like a blindfold: a rag
as weathered and stained and ragged as her robes themselves.
     But she stood as though she could see him all too well.
     'Depa..."
     Mace had to raise his voice to even hear himself through the roar of  the
repulsorlifts and the laser cannons and the exploding  dirt  and  rock  around
him. "Depa, what happened? What has happened to you?"
     'Hello, Mace," she said sadly. "You shouldn't have come."


     PART TWO

     INSTINCT

     FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU


     I finally understand what I'm doing here. Why I came.  I  understand  the
hypocrisy of that list of reasons I offered to Yoda and to Palpatine,  in  the
Chancellor's office those weeks ago.
     I was lying to them.
     And to myself.
     I must have seen the real reason I came  here  in  the  first  instant  I
turned  to  her  in  the  compound:  in  the  pain-etched  creases  below  her
cheekbones. In the scar where the Mark of Enlightenment had been.
     Yes: it wasn't really her. It was a Force-vision. A hallucination. A lie.
But even a lie of the Force is more true than any reality  our  limited  minds
can comprehend.
     In the rag that bound her eyes but did not blind her to the truth of me-
     I found my conditions of victory.
     I didn't come here to learn what has happened to Depa, nor to protect the
reputation of our Order.  I  don't  care  what's  happened  to  her,  and  the
reputation of our Order is meaningless.
     I did not come to fight this war. I don't care who wins. Because  no  one
wins. Not in real war. It is only a question of how much each side is  willing
to lose.
     I did not come here to apprehend or kill a rogue Jedi, or even  to  judge
one. I cannot judge her. I have been on the periphery of this war for barely a
double handful of days, and look what I am on the verge of becoming;  she  has
been in the thick of it for months.
     Drowning in darkness.
     Buried in the jungle.
     I didn't come here to stop Depa. I came here to save her.
     I will save her.
     And may the Force have mercy on any who would try to stop me, for I  will
have none.

     FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU

     I don't remember leaving the compound. I suppose I must have been in some
kind of shock. Not physical;  my  injuries  are  minor-though  now  the  bacta
patches from our captured medpacs are needed for more serious wounds, and  the
blaster burn on my thigh is angry and swelling with infection.  But  shock  is
the word. Mental shock, perhaps.
     Moral shock.
     A veil has fallen: between the  moment  when  Depa  came  to  me  in  the
compound, and the moment I came back to myself on the slope below, there is in
my mind mostly a blurred haze. In that blurred haze, I  find  two  conflicting
memories of our meeting there-
     And both of them, it seems, are false.
     Dreams. Imaginative reinterpretation of events.
     Hallucination.
     In one memory, she extends a hand toward me, and I reach to  take  it-but
instead I feel a tug at my vest and her lightsaber leaps from its inner pocket
and flips through the air to smack her palm. Blaster bolts from the  gunships'
laser cannons smash craters in the compound; each bolt  makes  rock  and  dirt
explode like grenades; the air around us fills  with  red  plasma  and  orange
flame-and that old familiar half smile tugs up one corner of her lips and  she
says, "Up or down?" and I tell her Up and she leaps into an aerial  roll  over
my head and I take a single step forward so  that  she  lands  with  her  back
against mine-
     And the feel of her back against my own. that strong and warm and  living
touch that I have felt so many times, in so many places, pulls the dread  from
my heart and the darkness from my eyes and our  blades  in  perfect  synchrony
meet the fires from above and cast them back into the dawn-scorched sky-
     As I said: a dream.
     The other memory is a silent image  of  walking  calmly  at  Depa's  side
through the rain of blasterfire, conversing with calm unconcern, as  oblivious
to the gunships as we are to the jungle, and to the sunlight of the  dawn.  In
this dream or memory, Depa turns her blindfolded  face  toward  me,  her  head
cocked as though she can see into my heart. Why have you come here,  Mace?  Do
you even know?
     I don't hear these words: again like a dream, it seems we  merely  intend
our meaning, and somehow make ourselves understood.
     Why did you send for me? is my answer.
     That's not the same thing, she reminds me gently. You have to define your
conditions of victory. If you don't know what you're trying to do, how can you
tell when you've done it? Why have you come? To stop me? You can do that  with
one slash of a lightsaber.
     ,'suppose, I somehow reply, lam trying to  find  out  what  has  happened
here. What is happening. To these people, and to you. Once I understand what's
going on, I'll know what to do about it.
     The only thing you don't understand, says this blind  dream-image  of  my
beloved Padawan, is that you already understand all there  is  to  understand.
You just don't want to believe it.
     Then the veil thickens, and deepens toward night, and I remember no  more
until sometime later-not too much later-when I was running helter-skelter down
through the jungle, quite alone.
     Bounding down a long, long slope half  barren  with  old  lava  where  it
wasn't burned with new, I could feel the guerrillas  somewhere  ahead  by  the
dark pall like smoke they trailed in the Force-and I could track them  by  the
blood spoor their many wounded left on ground and rock and leaf.
     And I remember skidding down the rim of  a  dry  wash,  and  finding  Kar
Vaster waiting for me at the bottom.
     Kar Vaster-
     I have much to say of this lorpelek. Of the powers I have seen him
     L
     wield, from the drawing of the fever wasps out of Besh and Chalk  to  the
way the jungle itself seems to part for his passage and tangle itself  behind.
Of his followers: those six Korunnai he calls the Akk Guards,  men  he's  made
into lesser echoes of himself. How he has  trained  them  in  their  signature
weapons-those terrifying "vi-broshields"-that he had designed and built.  Even
the smallest details: the primal ferocity of his gaze, the jungle-noise  growl
of his wordless voice, and how you hear his meaning as though it were your own
voice whispering inside your head-all deserve more depth of comment than I can
give them here.
     I'm not sure why it took me so long to  understand  that  he  and  I  are
natural enemies.
     The lorpelek stood on the slope  below  Mace,  holding  the  reins  of  a
saddled grasser. The grasser kept one  of  its  three  eyes  fixed  warily  on
Vaster, and when he spoke, the grasser trembled as though it  would  shy  away
were it not  held  in  place  by  an  invisible  force  that  overpowered  its
instincts.
     Jedi Windu. You are sent for, doshalo.
     Mace did not need to ask by whom. "Where is she?"
     An hour's ride ahead. Resting in her hoiadah. She no longer walks.
     Mace felt dizzy; the world shifted focus  as  though  he  looked  at  its
reflection in a rippling pool. "An hour...  no  longer  walks-?"  It  made  no
sense, but in the Force  it  felt  like  the  truth.  "She  was  here-she  was
jus'there-"
     No.
     'But she was-she greeted me, and-" Mace passed a  hand  over  his  skull,
checking for blood or swelling: searching for a head wound.  "I  returned  her
lightsaber-we fought-we fought the gunships-"
     You fought alone.
     'She was with me..."
     I sent two of my men to check on you, when you did not  join  the  march.
They watched from below, hiding from the Ealawai ships. They saw you: alone in
the compound, your blades flashing against the blasterfire.  My  men  say  you
drove them ojf single-handed, though they did not seem to be
     damaged. Perhaps you have taught Balawai  to  fear  the  Jedi  blade.  He
showed Mace his sharp-filed teeth. Nick Rostu spoke much of  your  victory  at
the pass. Even I might not be equal to such a feat.
     'She was with me." Mace stared  at  the  traces  of  portaak  amber  that
stained his palms. "We fought-or we spoke-I can't seem to remember-"
     ,'/ is pelekotan you recall.
     'The Force-? You're saying it was some kind of Force-vision?"
     Pelekotan brings us waking dreams of our desires and our fears.  Vastor's
tone was grave, but not unkind. When we desire what we fear and fear  what  we
desire, pelekotan always answers. Have the Jedi forgotten this?
     'It seemed so real-it seemed more real than you do."
     Vaster shrugged.,'/ was. Only pelekotan is real. Everything else is forms
and shadows: less even than a cloud, or a memory.  We  are  pelekotani  dream.
Have the Jedi forgotten this as well?
     Mace didn't answer. He had only then become aware of the balanced  weight
of his vest: he put a hand to  his  right-side  ribs,  and  felt  through  the
stained panther leather the outline of a lightsaber, matching his  own,  which
he wore on his left.
     Depa's lightsaber.
     And if what he'd seen in the compound had been a  vision  in  the  Force,
what then? Did it change the truth he'd seen? Did it change  the  truth  she'd
seen in him?
     From the Force, those truths become more real, not less.
     'A dream," he heard himself murmur. "A dream..."
     Vaster gestured for him to mount up. Dream she may  be,  but  refuse  her
summons and you will learn how swiftly dream turns to nightmare.
     Mace climbed into the saddle without telling the lorpelek that he already
knew.
     Some obscure impulse prompted him to ask:  "And  you,  Kar  Vaster:  what
visions does pelekotan bring to you?"
     His response was a limitless  stare,  inhuman,  as  full  of  unguessable
danger as the jungle itself. Why should pelekotan show me anything? I have  no
fears.
     'And no desires?"
     But he had already turned to lead the grasser away, and he gave  no  sign
that he had heard.

     FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU

     Kar Vaster led my grasser on foot; he was able to find a path through the
densest, most tangled undergrowth so effortlessly that  we  could  move  at  a
steady trot. After a time, I began to believe-as I now do-that his ability  to
move through the jungle was only half  perception;  the  other  half  was  raw
power. Not only could he sense a path where none could be seen, I  believe  he
could at need make a path where none had existed.
     Or perhaps make is the wrong word.
     I never saw this power in action; I never saw trees move,  nor  knots  of
vines unbind themselves. Instead I felt a continuous current in the  Force:  a
rolling cycle like the breath of some vast creature alone in the  dark.  Power
flowed into him and out again, but I did not feel him use it any more  than  I
feel my muscles use the sugars that feed them.
     And that is exactly how it seemed:  that  we  were  carried  through  the
jungle effortlessly, like corpuscles in its veins. Or thoughts in its infinite
mind.
     As though we were pelekotan's dream.
     In that ride from the rear to the front of the guerrillas' line of march,
I got my first view of the fabled Upland Liberation Front.
     The ULF: terror of the jungle. Mortal enemy  of  the  militia.  Ruthless,
unstoppable warriors who had driven the Confederacy of Independent Systems off
this planet.
     They were barely alive.
     Their march was a ragged column of walking wounded, tracking  each  other
through the jungle by splashes of blood and rich stink of infection.  I  would
learn, later, during the days of hellish march, that this latest operation had
been a series of raids on jungle prospector outposts; they were out  here  not
to kill Balawai, but to capture medpacs, food, clothing, weapons,  ammunition-
supplies that our Republic cannot or will not provide for them.
     They were heading for  their  base  in  the  mountains,  where  they  had
gathered nearly all that was left of the Korun people: all  their  elders  and
their invalids, their children, and what was left of their  herds.  Living  in
confined, crowded space was unnatural for Korunnai.They had no experience with
such conditions, and it  swiftly  took  its  toll.  Diseases  unknown  in  the
civilized galaxy ravaged their numbers: in the months  since  Depa's  arrival,
dysentery and pneumonia had  killed  more  Korunnai  than  had  the  militia's
gunships.
     These  gunships  circled  like  vultures  over  the  jungle.  The   trees
constantly hummed with the sounds of heavy repulsorlifts  and  turbofans.  The
hums rose to roars and fell to insectile buzzing, mingled to swarms and  split
to individuals that curved through the invisible  sky.  Now  and  again  flame
poured into the jungle from above, bringing harsh orange light  to  the  gloom
under the canopy, casting black shadows among the green.
     I don't think they were actually expecting to hit anyone.
     They harrassed us constantly, often firing down  at  random  through  the
jungle canopy, or sweeping overhead to  set  vast  swathes  afire  with  their
Sunfire flame projectors. To return fire would only fix our position for their
gunners, and so all we could do was scurry along below  the  canopy  and  hope
that we would not be seen.
     The guerrillas barely seemed to  notice.  They  slogged  along-those  who
could walk-with heads down, as though they had already accepted that sooner or
later one of those carpets of flame would fall upon them  all.  Korun  to  the
bone, they never uttered a word  of  complaint,  and  nearly  all  could  draw
strength from the Force-from pelekotan-to keep them on their feet.
     Those who could not walk were bundled like  baggage  upon  the  backs  of
their grassers. Most of the animals now bore nothing but wounded; the supplies
and equipment looted from the Balawai rode crude but sturdy travois  that  the
grassers dragged behind them.
     On this march, too, the ULF would endure a new tactic from  the  militia:
they had begun night raids. They didn't appear to have any  hope  of  actually
catching us-that wasn't the point. Instead, the gunships  flew  high  overhead
and fired laser cannons down at random. Just harassment. To  spoil  our  rest.
Keeping us awake and jumpy.
     Wounded men and women need sleep to heal; none  of  them  would  get  it.
Every dawn, a few more would lie still and cold on  their  bedrolls  when  the
rest of us arose. Every day a few more would stumble, blind  with  exhaustion,
and stagger away from the line of march to lose themselves among the trees.
     Usually permanently.
     There are many large predators on  Haruun  Kal:  half  a  dozen  distinct
species of vine cats, two smaller variants of akk dogs as well  as  the  giant
savage akk wolves, and many opportunistic scavengers such  as  the  jacuna,  a
flightless avian creature that travels in bands of up to several dozen monkey-
lizard-sized birds-which are equally adept at climbing, springing from  branch
to branch, or running on flat ground, and are not at all picky  about  whether
what they eat is actually dead. And most of the large predators of Haruun  Kal
are intelligent enough to remember the good feeding to be had in the wake of a
column of wounded Korunnai. Which is why stragglers rarely caught up  with  us
again.
     We were, as Nick would say, a walking all-you-can-eat buffet line.
     This is also why the ULF didn't have to post  much  of  a  guard  on  the
prisoners.
     There were twenty-eight, all told: two dozen jungle prospectors  and  the
four surviving children. The jups were left to stagger along  supporting  each
other as best they could,  dragging  those  who  could  not  walk  on  smaller
versions of the travois hauled by the grassers.
     They were watched by only a pair of Vastor's Akk Guards and six of  their
fierce akk dogs; as Vaster led Mace past, he explained  that  the  guards  and
dogs were there only to make  sure  the  Balawai  did  not  steal  weapons  or
supplies from wounded Korunnai, or otherwise attack their captors. The  guards
didn't need blasters; any prisoner who wished to escape into  the  jungle  was
welcome to.
     That is, after all, what was going to happen to them anyway: stripped  of
everything but their clothing and boots, they would be  turned  loose  in  the
jungle, left to make their way to whatever safety they might be able to find.
     Tan pel'trokal. Jungle justice.
     Mace leaned alongside the grasser's neck, to speak  softly  for  Vastor's
ears alone. "How do you know they won't double back along the line  of  march?
Some of your wounded are barely walking. These Balawai might  think  it  worth
the risk to steal weapons or supplies."
     Vaster gave a grin like a mouthful of needles. Can  you  not  feel  them?
They are in the jungle, not of the jungle. They cannot surprise us.
     'Then why are they still here?"
     It's light, Vaster rumbled, with a wave of the  wrist  at  the  green-lit
leaves above.  The  day  belongs  to  the  gunships.  We  give  prisoners  tan
pel'trokal after sunset.
     'In the dark," Mace murmured.
     Yes. The night belongs to us.
     Mace remembered the recording of Depa's whisper:... I use the night,  and
the night uses me... It gave his chest a heavy ache. His breath came hard  and
slow.
     Nick was down with the prisoners, leading by the reins a mangy,  underfed
grasser. This grasser had another dual-saddle setup like the one that had been
blown to bits on Nick's grasser back in the notch pass; each  saddle  was  big
enough to hold two children. Urno and Nykl rode in the  upper,  forward-facing
saddle, gripping the heavy pelt of the grasser's ruff, peering out from  below
its ears. Keela and Pell rode  in  the  lower  saddle,  facing  the  rear  and
clinging to each other in mute despair.
     Seeing those four children reminded the Jedi Master of the child who  was
not there, and he had to look away from Kar Vaster. In his head he saw the lor
pelek holding the corpse of a boy. He saw the gleam of the shield through  the
wet streaked sheen ofTerrel's blood. He could not meet Vastor's  eyes  without
hating him. "And the children, too?" The  words  seemed  to  swell  up  Mace's
throat and push themselves out at the other man. "You give them to the jungle?
"
     This is our way. Vastor's growl  softened  with  understanding.  You  are
thinking of the boy. The one in the bunker. Mace  still  could  not  meet  his
eyes. "He was captured. Disarmed."
     He was a murderer, not a soldier. He attacked the helpless. "So did you."
     Yes. And if I am taken by the enemy, I will get worse than I gave. Do you
think the Balawai will offer me a dean, quick death?
     'We're not talking about them," Mace said. "We're talking about  you.
     Vaster only shrugged.
     Nick caught sight of them and gave a sardonic wave.  "I'm  not  really  a
baby-sitter," he called. "I just play one on the HoloNet."
     His tone was cheerful, but on his face the Jedi  Master  could  read  the
clear knowledge of what would happen to these children at sunset.  Mace's  own
face hurt; he touched his forehead and discovered there a  scowl.  "What's  he
doing here?"
     Vastor stared past Nick, as though to look upon him would be a compliment
the young Korun did not deserve. He cannot be trusted with real work.
     'Because he left me behind to  save  his  friends?  Chalk  and  Besh  are
veteran fighters. Aren't they worth the effort?"
     They are expendable. As is he.
     'Not to me," Mace told him. "No one is."
     The lorpelek seemed to consider this for a long time  as  he  walked  on,
leading Mace's grasser. I do not know why Depa wanted you  here,  he  said  at
length. But I do not have to know. She desires your presence; that is  enough.
Because you are important to her, you are important  to  our  war.  Much  more
important than a bad soldier like Nick Rostu.
     'He's hardly a bad soldier-"
     He is weak. Cowardly. Afraid of sacrifice.
     'Risking his mission-his life-for his  friends  might  make  Nick  a  bad
soldier," Mace said, "but it makes him a good man."  And  because  he  somehow
could not resist, he added: "Better than you."
     Vastor looked up at the Jedi Master with jungle-filled  eyes.  Better  at
what?



     FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU


     I don't see Vastor as evil. Not as a truly  bad  man.  Yes,  he  radiates
darkness-but so do all the Korunnai. And the Balawai. His is the  darkness  of
the jungle, not the darkness of the Sith. He does not live for power, to cause
pain and dominate all  he  surveys.  He  simply  lives.  Fiercely.  Naturally.
Stripped of the restraints of civilization.
     He is less a man than he is an avatar of the jungle  itself.  Dark  power
flows into him and out again but it does not seem  to  touch  him.  He  has  a
savage purity that I might envy, were I not a Jedi and sworn to the light.
     Black is the presence of every color.
     He doesn't make the darkness, he only uses it. His inner  darkness  is  a
reflection of the darkness of his world; and it darkens the world  around  him
in turn. Internal and external darkness create each other, just as do internal
and external light: that is the underlying unity of the Force.
     As Depa might say, he didn't start this war. He's just trying to win it.
     And that was it, right there: my Jedi instincts  had  made  a  connection
below the threshold of my consciousness. Vastor. The jungle. The akk dogs, and
the humans who had been made into Vastor's pack. Depa. Darkness so deep it was
like being blind. Nick's words: The jungle doesn't  promise.  It  exists.  Not
because the jungle kills you. Because it is what it is.
     The war itself.
     Only later, when I would spend a full day riding alongside Depa's  howdah
on the dorsal shell of her immense ankkox, when I would have to lean close  to
the gauzy curtains to catch her half-whispered words, would I understand where
my instincts were leading me.
     There are times when her voice is strong and  clear,  and  her  arguments
lucid, and if I close my eyes and ignore the rocking of the ankkox's gait, the
insect stings and rich floral rot of the jungle, I  can  imagine  us  chatting
over a couple of cups of rek tea in my meditation chamber at the Jedi Temple.
     In those times, she makes a terrifying sense.
     'You still think like  a  judicial,"  she  told  me  once.  "That's  your
fundamental error. You still think in terms of enforcing  the  law.  Upholding
the rules. You were a  great  peace  officer,  Mace,  but  you're  a  terrible
general. That's what cost so many lives at Geonosis: we  went  in  like  judi-
cials. Trying to rescue hostages without loss of  life.  Trying  to  keep  the
peace. The Geonosians already knew  we  were  at  war-so  only  a  few  of  us
survived..."
     'And if I thought like a general, what should I have done?" I asked  her.
"Let Obi-Wan and Anakin die?"
     'A general," murmured  the  shadow  through  the  curtains,  "would  have
dropped a baradium bomb on that arena."
     'Depa, you can't be serious," I began, but she had stopped  listening  to
me.
     'Win the war," she went on. "Win at the cost of two  Jedi,  one  Senator,
and a few thousand of the enemy."
     'At the cost of everything that makes jedi what we are."
     'Instead, a hundred and more Jedi died, and you have  a  galaxy  at  war.
Millions will die, and millions more will end up like  that  boy  Kar  killed:
twisted, angry, and evil. Gather a million corpses, and tell them your  ethics
outweighed their lives..."
     To this I have no easy answer, even now.
     But as Yoda says: There  are  questions  for  which  we  can  never  have
answers. We can only be answers.
     That is what I must try to be, for I know, now, what it  means  to  be  a
keeper of the peace in the Galaxy of War.
     That is: it means nothing at all.
     There is no peace. What we thought was the Great Peace  of  the  Republic
was only a dream from which our galaxy has now awakened. I  doubt  we'll  ever
fall back into any dream like that again.
     In the Galaxy of War, no one sleeps that well.
     This understanding came later; at the time, as I  sat  in  the  grasser's
saddle and looked down at Kar Vaster,  the  prisoners  behind  us  and  Depa's
ankkox still unseen ahead, I had only a notion-a hunch-a mass  of  unprocessed
feelings and unsorted ideas.
     An instinct.
     But somehow my instincts seemed to be working again...  which  is  why  I
chose to send Vastor on without me. As I asked Depa a thousand times, when she
was my Padawan-
     Is the true lesson what the teacher teaches, or what the student learns?
     A few paces beyond where the Balawai prisoners stumbled along the  jungle
floor, Mace Windu reached past the grasser's nose and took its  reins  in  one
hand. "This is far enough. Leave me here."
     Vastor stopped, looking back over his massive shoulder. Depa awaits.
     'She's waited for weeks. She'll wait a few hours  more."  For  the  first
time since the battle at the notch  pass,  Mace  felt  calm.  Sure.  On  solid
ground. "Go on without me. I will attend her when I choose."
     You are sent for. She is not to be defied. Vastor turned  and  tugged  on
the reins, but Mace had them in his fist, and they might  as  well  have  been
bolted to a cliff.
     Vastor's eyes flickered with distant danger: lightning from a storm below
the horizon. You will regret this.
     'I am a Jedi Master, and a Senior Member of the Jedi Council," Mace  said
patiently. "I am a general of the Grand Army of the Republic. I am not  to  be
sent for. If she wants to see me, she will find me at the  steamcrawler  track
before dusk."
     The lightning in the lor peletts eyes came closer. I  have  said  I  will
deliver you.
     Mace matched his stare exactly. "Funny: that's almost what Nick said.  He
didn't have much luck with it either."
     My orders-
     'Are your problem." Mace let the reins fall and spread his open hands. He
went perfectly still, perfectly relaxed, perfectly calm, except for the sizzle
of the Force that arced  like  static  electricity  from  the  two  lightsaber
handgrips to his empty palms. "Unless you choose to make them our problem. You
can do that right now, if you like."
     Vaster let the reins drop as well. He stepped away from the  grasser  and
turned to face the Jedi Master squarely. His  immense  shoulders  bulged,  and
muscles across his  chest  went  rigid  in  acid-etched  definition.  The  air
shimmered like a mirage around him: anger beat against Mace like a hot wind in
the Force. You will come "with me.
     'No."
     Dark power clutched at Mace's will. You will come with me.
     Slowly, reluctantly, Mace slid himself out of the saddle and  slipped  to
the ground. He took two steps toward Vaster.
     And stopped.
     'I no longer enjoy your company," the Jedi Master said. "Go now.  Do  not
return to me without Depa."
     Vastor's eyes widened. His mouth worked soundlessly.
     'You and I should not be alone together. There may be a fight."
     Tendons stood out in  Vastor's  neck,  winching  his  head  downward  and
pulling his lips away from his sharp-filed teeth.,' do not wish to fight  you,
doshalo. Despite the rage smoking off him in the Force, his  voice  was  soft.
Depa will be angry to find you dead.
     'Then you'd best be on your way," Mace replied reasonably. "Don't want to
make Depa angry, do you?"
     Apparently he didn't: Vastor's growl thinned to a snarl  of  frustration.
And what should I tell her you are doing here?
     'Nothing that I can be bothered to explain to you." Mace turned  back  to
his grasser and took its reins once more. "Any questions Depa might have,  she
should ask me herself."
     Though pretending to busy himself with adjusting the grasser's tack, Mace
paid absolute attention to Vastor's white-hot stare burning its way  into  his
shoulder blades. He  stayed  loose  and  balanced,  ready  to  spring  in  any
direction should the lor pelek lunge for his back.
     Instead, he only heard a snarl and a growl and several short, deep  yips:
Vaster had said something to one of the Akk Guards who watched the  prisoners.
With one last glare that Mace could feel as though a lens focused sunlight  on
his skin, Vaster whirled away and plunged into the jungle, loping up the  line
of march.
     Mace watched him go, bleak satisfaction on his face. He thought:
     So much for being the welcome guest.
     The Akk Guard whom Vastor had spoken to gave Mace a dire look, echoed  by
the three akk dogs nearby. Mace ignored them all, and a few seconds later  the
Akk Guard stomped off to find his partner and the other akks. Mace caught Nick
Rostu's eye and beckoned. Nick turned the children's grasser over  to  one  of
the Balawai and trotted over to the Jedi Master, keeping one eye turned toward
the departing Akk Guard. "Shee. Those guys give me the creeps. Looked a little
tense there, Master Windu. What did the big guy say to you?"
     'Here, hold him." Mace handed the grasser's reins to Nick. "How much  did
you hear?"
     'Some of what you said. Got some guts, you  do."  Nick  stretched  up  to
scratch the grasser on the side of its neck. "But Vastor-maybe you've noticed?
You can only understand him when he's  talking  directly  to  you.  When  he's
talking to somebody else, he always sounds like he's growling or whistling  or
making some other kind of animal noises and stuff."
     'Yes, I had noticed something like that," Mace said slowly, nodding. "But
I'd thought it was just me. Back at the outpost... things were confusing."
     'That's why it's kind of like you're talking to yourself, you get it?  In
my head, he talks like a Pelek Baw curb-monkey. So what did he say to you?"
     'He was," Mace said dryly, "trying to impress me with his sense of duty."
     'So: what now? You didn't dust off the most dangerous man in the Korunnal
Highland just to come and have a chat  with  the  president  of  Rostu  Jungle
Nannies Inc. You have a move to make."
     Mace nodded. "We have a move to make. Mount  up.  You're  going  to  lead
these prisoners to the steamcrawler track so that the militia  can  find  them
and pick them up." iL
     Nick's mouth dropped open. "We... me? Why would I want  to  do  something
like that?"
     'Because I gave them the word of a Jedi Master that if they surrendered I
would keep them from harm. I will not be made a liar."
     'What's your word got to do with me?"
     'Nothing at all," Mace said. "I'm sure you  enjoy  thinking  about  Keela
being disemboweled by a vine cat. When you think  of  Pell,  do  you  see  her
starving to death in a gripvine nest or having her eyes pecked out by jacunas?
"
     Nick looked sick. "Hey, easy with that tusker poop, huh?"
     'You think the boys will be gored by tuskers, or shredded by  brassvines?
Maybe they'll get lucky and fall  into  a  death  hollow.  At  least  that  is
relatively swift, as their lungs are eaten by caustic  fumes,  and  their  own
tears scald their faces like acid..."
     The young Korun turned away. "You have any idea what Kar and Depa will do
to me?"
     'You've been over the ground in this region. If I lead them myself,  I'll
end up losing us all in the jungle. Mount up. Right now."
     Nick snorted. "Shee, still pretty free with the orders, aren't  we?  What
if I just don't wanna? What if I do like thinking about all that  stuff?  What
if I want those people dead? What then?"
     Mace went still. He stared off into the jungle, his eyes filled with  its
darkness. "Then I will beat you into unconsciousness," he said  quietly,  "and
ask someone else."
     He looked at Nick.
     Nick swallowed.
     Mace said, "I won't tell you again."
     Nick mounted up.
     'Kar Vaster," the Jedi Master said, looking again into the  jungle,  this
time up the line of march where the lor pelek had vanished, "is not  the  most
dangerous man on the Korunnal Highland."
     Nick shook his head. "You only say that because  you  don't  really  know
him."
     'I say that," Mace Windu replied, "because he doesn't know me."


     A JEDI'S WORD


     The prisoners limped along in ragged knots, holding each other  up  and
nervously eyeing the pacing akk dogs. Mace forced his way through the  tangled
undergrowth toward them, Nick close behind on the grasser.
     'Am I missing something here?" Nick leaned over to speak softly, one  arm
bent across the back of the grassers thick neck. "Last  night  these  ruskakks
were trying to carve off a hunk of roast Windu."
     'This tan pel'trokal." Mace's voice was equally low and  far  more  grim.
"You approve of it?"
     'Sure." Nick glanced at the grasser that the children rode,  and  swiftly
looked away. "Well, in principle, anyway..." His vivid eyes  went  narrow  and
cynical. "Wasn't too long ago Kar used to just kill them all. Can't afford  to
feed 'em. What else should we do? Givin' them the justice was Depa's call."
     'Oh?"
     'Makes sense, don't it? If the Balawai think we'll kill 'em  anyway,  why
should they surrender? Every one of them'd  fight  to  the  death.  That  gets
expensive, y'know? So we give 'em to the jungle. At least they got a chance."
     'How many survive?" ome.
     'Half? A quarter? One in a hundred?"
     'How should I know?" Nick shrugged. "Does it make a difference?"
     Mace Windu said, "Not to me."
     Nick closed his eyes and leaned his head against  the  grasser's  ear  as
though exhausted, or in pain.  "You've  gone  bats,  haven't  you,"  he  said.
"You're completely insane."
     Mace stopped. A twitch of  frown  drew  a  vertical  crease  between  his
eyebrows. "No. Just the opposite, in fact."
     'What's that supposed to mean?"
     But Mace was already walking away.
     Nick muttered a curse on  all  fraggin'Jedi  who  used  nikkle  nuts  for
brains, then goaded the grasser along after him.
     When the prisoners saw them coming, a man's voice said, "It's the Jedi...
No, the other one. The real Jedi." Mace thought this voice might belong to the
man he'd spoken to in the steamcrawler this morning: the gray-faced one with a
chest wound and a missing hand, who would not believe in a Jedi's word.
     Mace chose not to ask what he meant by the real Jedi.
     Some few of the  prisoners  clustered  toward  him,  straightening  their
clothing and forcing their faces into expressions of hope; most  just  stopped
where they were, swaying with exhaustion or stumbling against the  great  gray
trees. Some grabbed handfuls of  vines  to  lower  themselves  slowly  to  the
ground.
     A few tens of meters downslope, the two Akk Guards stared up at Mace with
undisguised hostility. Two of the six  akk  dogs  on  prisoner  duty  slouched
sullenly nearby.
     The children's grasser was led by a man whom Mace recognized as Urno  and
Nykl's father. The only clean spots on his dirt - and blood-smeared face  were
the twin tracks from his eyes to his chin, rinsed white by tears.  He  dropped
the reins and threw himself on the ground at Mace's feet. "Please-please, Your
Honor-Your Highness-" he sobbed, facedown into the jungle floor, "please don't
let them kill my boys. Do what you want with me-I  deserve  it,  I  know,  I'm
sorry for what I done, but my boys... it's not their  fault,  they  didn't  do
nothing-please, I don't-I never met a Jedi before-I don't  even  know  what  I
should call you-"
     'Stand up," Mace said sternly. "Jedi are not to be knelt to. We  are  not
your masters, but your servants. Stand up."
     Slowly, the astonished man pulled himself to his feet. The  back  of  his
hand smeared a streak of mud below his nose.  "Okay,"  he  said.  "All  right.
What's coming to me-I can take it like a man... but my boys-"
     'What's coming to you is your life, and possibly your freedom as well."
     The man blinked, uncomprehending. "Your Honor-?"
     'Call me Master  Windu."  Mace  swept  past  him  and  opened  his  arms,
beckoning to all the prisoners. "Gather 'round. I'll need  you  all  to  stick
closer together. There will not be enough of us to look after stragglers."
     'Sir?" Keela said as the children's grasser caught up.  She  had  twisted
sideways in the lower saddle to stare at Mace with damp, bloodshot eyes. "Sir,
what are they going to do with us? Where's Mom? Are you gonna let them put  us
out in the jungle?"
     Mace met her tear-blurred gaze squarely. "No. I'm going to send you  back
to the city. You're going home. All of you."
     Nick muttered, "Don't make promises you can't keep."
     'I never do."
     'You don't think Kar and those Akk  Guards  down  there  are  gonna  have
something to say about it?"
     'I'm aware of their opinion already. I have my own."
     'The tan pel'trokal-"
     'Means nothing to me," Mace said. "I don't care about jungle  justice.  I
care about Jedi justice. And I will see it done."
     'Jedi justice, my weeping saddle sores. You still don't get it,  do  you?
Jedi anything doesn't mean squat out here-"
     'I understand the rules now. You read  them  to  me  yourself;  then  Kar
Vastor taught me what they mean. Now I can start to play."
     'That's just it," Nick insisted. "You're in the jungle, now. There are no
rules."
     'Of course there are. Don't be an idiot."
     Nick blinked. "You're kidding, right? You're making a joke."  
     "Stay  here and  watch,"  Mace  told him, working his way down toward the 
guards. "Then  tell me what you think of my sense of humor."
     The same Akk Guard whom Mace had kicked  now  moved  to  block  the  Jedi
Master's path. The swellings Vastor's fist had left on the man's face had gone
as purple-black as the thickening clouds overhead. Muscle bunched like  blocks
of duracrete under the skin of his bare chest. "Where going, Windu?"
     Mace had to tilt his head back to meet the Korun's stare. "I  don't  know
your name."
     'You can call me-"
     'I didn't ask your name," Mace cut him off. "I just   don't  know  it.  I
don't need to. You should get out of my way."
     The guard's eyes looked scalded, and more than slightly crazed.  "Out  of
your way, little Jedi?"
     'I am taking the prisoners to the steamcrawler  track."  Mace  nodded  in
that general direction. "I can go past you, or I can go over you. You pick."
     "Over me? Can fly, you?"The vibroshields strapped to his forearms snarled
to life. He raised them to either side of Mace's face. "Draw your toy  weapon,
little Jedi. Go ahead. Draw."
     'My lightsaber? Why should I?" Mace  raised  a  finger  to  tap  his  own
forehead. "This is the only weapon I need."
     'Yeah?" A sneer: "What, think me to death, you gonna?"
     'You misunderstand." By way of explanation,  he  splattered  the  Korun's
nose with a sharp head-butt.
     The  Korun  staggered  backward.  Mace  moved   with   him   in   perfect
synchronization as though they were dancing, hands gripping the man's  massive
biceps. When the Korun started to recover  his  balance,  his  head  naturally
coming forward once more, Mace yanked on his arms, pulling  him  into  another
head-butt that brought Mace's forehead and  the  point  of  the  Korun's  chin
together with a crack as sharp as a breaking rock.
     Mace stepped back to let the semiconscious man collapse. The other  guard
snarled and lunged at Mace's back, only to find himself  facing  the  business
end of a sizzling purple lightsaber.
     'He's alive," Mace said calmly. "So are you. For now. The next one of you
pathetic nerfs who raises a hand to me will die for it. Do you understand?"
     The Korun only stared at him with murder on his face.
     "'Answer me!"  Mace  roared.  With  a  convulsive  snarl,  he  threw  his
lightsaber on the ground at the  Korun's  feet.  Faster  than  the  eye  could
follow, his hand flashed out, his thumb hooking the Korun's  cheek  while  his
fingers dug in behind the hinge of the man's jaw. He yanked the  Korun's  face
to within a centimeter of his own, and there was open raging  madness  in  his
eyes. "DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?"
     The Korun's mouth worked in speechless shock. Mace howled into his  face,
"YOU WANT TO DIE? YOU WANT TO DIE RIGHT NOW? MAKE A MOVE! DO  IT!  DO  IT  AND
DIE!"
     The astonished Korun could only blink and mumble and  try  to  shake  his
head. Mace released the man's face with a contemptuous  shove  that  sent  the
guard stumbling backward. Mace opened  his  empty  hand,  and  his  lightsaber
flipped up from the ground and smacked into his palm. He tucked it  back  into
the holster inside his vest.
     'Never get in my way." His voice was again icily calm. "Ever."
     He turned his eye to the pair of akk dogs, who were up and growling  like
looming thunderheads, spines bristling across their armored shoulders.
     Mace stared at them.
     First one, then the other, lowered its head and flattened  those  spines.
Tails tucked low, the akk dogs backed away.
     Mace looked upslope,  where  Nick  stood  gaping  in  blank  wonder.  The
captives huddled even closer together, none daring to make eye  contact.  Mace
beckoned.
     By the time Nick and the grasser that carried the children  arrived,  the
downed Akk Guard was stirring. But when he opened his eyes to find Mace  still
standing over him, he decided to stay on the ground.
     'Okay, I admit it," Nick said as they passed by the guards and the  dogs.
"That was pretty funny. And a little scary: I've never seen you angry before."
     'You still haven't," Mace said  softly.  "Remember  those  rules  of  the
jungle I was talking about? You just saw one in action."
     'What rule was that?"
     'When the big dog's walking," said Jedi Master Mace Windu,  "little  dogs
step aside."



     Icy rain splashed down  through  the  canopy,  and  thunder  rolled  like
turbojets of gunships passing  overhead.  Though  the  day  had  reached  only
midafternoon, the storm wrapped the jungle in late-twilight gloom. Mace walked
a few paces behind Nick's bedraggled grasser. Raindrops tapped his skull, atid
a chilly rivulet twisted along his spine. In places where the leaf  mold  gave
way to bare ground, mud sucked at his boots with every step. Sometimes he sank
in deeply enough that the mud leaked over  his  boot  tops.  Only  by  drawing
strength from the Force could he keep moving.
     He could not imagine  what  the  march  must  be  like  for  the  wounded
prisoners.
     Every once in a while, a hunk or two of the hail  that  the  thunder-head
above spat down would bounce all the way through the layers of leaf and branch
and vine and give someone a knock. By the time they reached ground level, most
of these hailstones had melted down to about half the size of Mace's fist: too
small to be dangerous, though still large enough to raise  stinging  welts  on
his head. The Balawai prisoners gathered ones that  fell  nearby,  sucking  on
them to melt them in their mouths. With a bit of wiping, these hailstones made
the cleanest source of water they were likely to find-they  carried  only  the
faintest sulfurous traces of volcanic smoke and gases.
     In the Force, Mace felt the hot fierce sting of an approaching akk dog; a
moment later he felt a Force-nudge on his right shoulder blade. He reached  up
to tug on Nick's ankle. "Keep them going," he said, raising his voice over the
hiss of the rain. "I'll be right back."
     A few steps off their line of march, a man's shadow began to  take  shape
through the rain-blurred gloom. Mace walked toward it, weaving  between  trees
and moving vines aside with a gesture, to find the bruised Akk  Guard  heading
for him carrying one of the Balawai. Behind the guard, the great akk Mace  had
felt made a gray silhouette.
     'Fell out, this one. Think he's fevered, me." The guard set  the  Balawai
on his feet. It was the wounded  man  with  the  missing  hand.  "Better  keep
someone with him, you."
     Mace nodded as he looped the man's good arm over  his  shoulders.  "Thank
you. I'll look after him." The Balawai gazed at him without recognition.
     The guard frowned down at them. "Gonna kill you for this,  Kar  is.  Know
that, you?"
     'I appreciate your concern."
     'No concern. Just tellm. That's all."
     'Thank you."
     The guard frowned a moment longer, then gave an elaborate shrug before he
turned away and faded once more into the gloom.
     Mace thoughtfully watched him go. The two Akk Guards hadn't been hard  to
co-opt; while Nick wrangled the Balawai  into  something  resembling  marching
order, Mace had worked his way back upslope to where one stood  watching  him,
while the one he'd knocked down still sat on the ground massaging  his  broken
nose.
     Mace squatted beside him. "How's your face?" he'd asked gravely.
     The guard's voice was half muffled by his hands. "Why care, you?"
     'It's no dishonor to lose to a Jedi," Mace had said. "Here, let me see."
     When the astonished Akk Guard took his hands away from his face, Mace put
his hands to either side of the man's nose and popped the bones straight  with
one brisk twisting squeeze. The sudden sharp pain made the Korun gasp, but  it
was over so quickly he didn't even have time to yelp.
     After that he could only blink in wonder. "Hey-hey, feels  better,  that.
How'd you-"
     'Sorry I lost my temper," Mace said, standing to include  the  other  Akk
Guard. "But I can't back down from a challenge. You understand."
     The two Korunnai exchanged a glance, and they both nodded reluctantly, as
Mace had known they would: Vaster had trained them like dogs,  and  like  dogs
their only answer to the pat on the head that followed the  kick  was  to  wag
their tails and hope they weren't in trouble anymore.  "I  think  you're  both
solid," Mace went on. "Strong fighters. That's why I  went  at  you  so  hard:
respect. You're too dangerous for me to play games with."
     The Korun with the broken nose had said in a tone of generous concession,
"Got a stone-sweet head-butt, you." He chuckled, crossing his eyes to look  at
the bloodied swelling between them. "Best I ever ate."
     Now the other Akk Guard could not resist chiming in. "And that grab on my
face-was a Jedi thing, that? Never seen it before, me. Maybe teach me, you?"
     Mace had no more time  for  pleasantries.  "Listen:  I  know  taking  the
prisoners will cause trouble with Kar. And I know you'll  be  in  trouble  for
letting them go with me. Why don't you stay with us? Bring your dogs. Keep the
Balawai in line, and don't let any of them get lost. It's not like  Kar  won't
know where we're going. I told him myself. And if you're along, he won't  have
any trouble finding us: you can feel each other in pelekotan. Right?"
     Again they had exchanged glances, and again they had nodded.
     'If Kar wants these prisoners, he can take them from me himself. How  can
he blame you for losing if he's afraid to step up?"
     To a dark-soaked Korun, this was undeniable logic.
     'Right,"  the  bruised  guard  said  happily.  "Right.  Thinks  you're  a
tumblepup in vine cat skin, him? Let him yank your tail. Will find  out  quick
enough, I think."
     And so Mace Windu had acquired a pair of Korun shepherds for his flock of
Balawai.
     Mace had cemented Nick's assistance with a  similar  technique.  As  they
were about to turn aside from the ULF  column,  Mace  had  stood  thoughtfully
alongside Nick's grasser. "Nick," he'd begun, "I'm going to need an aide."
     The young Korun had squinted suspiciously down from the saddle. "An aide?
What for?"
     'Like you said when you picked me up in Pelek Baw: I'm  not  from  around
here. I need someone who can look after me,  give  me  advice,  that  kind  of
thing-"
     'You want advice? Flush the fraggin' Balawai and shag your Jedi butt back
up the column. Make some kissy-face with Kar and Depa  before  they  chop  you
into sausage. Any other advice you want, feel free to ask."
     'That's what I'm doing."
     'Huh?"
     'I need someone who knows his way around out here. Someone I can trust."
     Nick snorted. "Good fraggin' luck. I wouldn't trust anyone out here-"
     'I don't," Mace told him. "Except you."
     'Me?" Nick shook his head. "You really have gone bats. Haven't you heard?
I'm the least trustworthy guy in the ULF. I'm the weak coward, right? I'm  the
useless butter-brain who couldn't even get you out here from Pelek Baw without
screwing it up-and now I'm screwing up again by playing along with this  whole
nikkle-nut Free-the-Balawai parade-"
     'You're the only trustworthy man I've met on Haruun Kal," Mace  had  said
solidly. "You're the only man I can trust to do the right thing."
     'Hoo-fraggin'-ray. Look where it's gotten me."
     'It's gotten you," Mace said, "a chance to join the personal staff  of  a
general of the Grand Army of the Republic."
     'Yeah?" Nick began to look interested. "What's it pay?"
     'Nothing," Mace admitted, and Nick's face fell, but the Jedi Master  went
on, "Though when I leave this planet, I'll be taking my staff with me."
     Nick's eyes recovered a little spark.
     'With a brevet rank of, let's say, major? And once we get  to  Coruscant,
I'll be needing staff instructors to train officers in  guerrilla  tactics.  A
few months as an urban - and jungle-warfare  consultant  affiliated  with  the
Jedi Temple should make you pretty attractive to all those mercenary  captains
out there. You might even get your own company. Isn't that what you  want?  Or
am I confusing you with some other Korun whose fondest dream is to travel  the
galaxy as a mercenary?"
     'You bet your  sweet-I  mean,  No,  sir.  General.  Major  Rostu  at  the
general's service. Sir. Uh-is there any kind of swearing-in, or anything?"
     'I hadn't really thought about it," Mace admitted. "I've  never  inducted
anyone into the Grand Army of the Republic before."
     'I feel like I should raise my right hand or something."
     Mace nodded thoughtfully. "Put your left hand over your heart, raise your
right and stand at attention."
     Nick did so. "This is-uh, y'know, I' feel kind of funny about this-"
     'It is not to be undertaken lightly. The Force  stands  witness  to  such
oaths."
     'Sure enough." Nick swallowed. "Okay, I'm ready."
     'Do you solemnly swear to serve the Republic in thought, in word, and  in
deed; to defend its citizens, resist its enemies,  and  champion  its  justice
with the whole of your heart, your strength, and your mind;  to  forswear  all
other allegiances; to obey all lawful orders of  your  superior  officers;  to
uphold the highest ideals of  the  Republic,  and  at  all  times  to  conduct
yourself to the credit of the Republic as its commissioned officer, by witness
of, aid from, and faith in the Force?"
     Didn't sound bad at all, Mace thought.,' should probably write that down.
     Nick blinked silently. His eyes looked glassy, and he licked his lips.
     Mace leaned toward him. "Say I do, Nick."
     'I-I guess I do," he said in a tone of wondering discovery, as though  he
had just learned something astonishing about himself. "I mean: yes. I do."
     'Come to attention, and salute."
     Nick had snapped to in very creditable fashion, though he still looked  a
bit dazed. "Hey-hey, I feel something. In the Force-" His daze was replaced by
open astonishment. "It's you."
     'A  soldier  at  attention  does  not  speak,  except  to  answer  direct
questions. Is this understood?"
     'Yes, sir."
     'What you feel is our new relationship: it has a resonance in  the  Force
not unlike the bond of an akk to its human."
     'So I'm your dog, now?"
     'Nick."
     'Right, right, shut up. I know. Uh-sir."
     'At ease, Major," Mace had said as he finally returned the young  Korun's
salute. "Move them out."
     Now as the departing Akk Guard disappeared into the  rain,  Mace  carried
the wounded Balawai back to the group of exhausted prisoners. He couldn't find
anyone among them who even looked strong enough to support this  man's  weight
over the jumbled tree roots and through the calf-deep mud, so he just shrugged
and joined the march, holding the Balawai's arm around his neck.
     Heads down, shoulders hunched against the icy downpour, they slogged on.
     They broke out of the trees on a small promontory that ended in  a  sheer
cliff. Jungle  swarmed  its  base  a  hundred  meters  below.  They  had  been
sidestepping down a long switchback, heading for  the  canyon  floor.  Half  a
klick behind, a ribbon of waterfall steamed down a  thousand-meter  drop;  the
far canyon wall was a riot of greens and purples and bright shining  red  that
eclipsed half the sky. The thunderstorm swept to their rear as Mace  and  Nick
broke out from the trees, and in the near distance through the canyon's  mouth
ahead, only a klick away-glowing now with afternoon  sun  blazing  red-slanted
from a crystal sky-lay the broad bare-dirt curve of the steamcrawler track.
     Mace and Nick were both on foot. The feverish Balawai was tied  into  the
grasser's saddle.
     'There it is," Nick said. His voice was low and grim. "Pretty, ain't it?"
     'Yes. Pretty." Mace stepped around the grasser. "Pity we didn't make it."
     Any Force-sensitive could have felt the  menace  that  lay  across  their
path; to Mace, it felt like an arc of forest fire ripping through  the  trees.
He couldn't feel exactly what was down there,  but  he  knew  it  was  Vaster:
whatever forces he had brought after them now sealed the mouth of the canyon.
     Nick nodded. He unslung his rifle, checked the clip, and cocked it. "Just
couldn't move fast enough." He glanced back to  where  the  Balawai  were  now
struggling out to the fringe of the undergrowth.  He  shook  his  head.  "Only
needed an hour. That's all. One more hour, we woulda been clear."
     'What's going on?" The boys' father joined  them  near  the  rim  of  the
cliff. "Is that the track? Why have we stopped?"
     The Akk Guard with the bruised face Came out of the trees; the  six  dogs
and the other guard were fanned out behind the prisoners. He nodded toward the
thick arc of danger that all but the  grassers  and  the  Balawai  could  feel
ahead. "Hard luck, huh? Told you Kar would come, me."
     'Yes." Mace folded his arms. "It was too much to hope that he  might  let
us go." He turned to the Akk Guard. "You can go to him, if you like."
     'Maybe will, us." The Korun had recovered some of his former swagger. His
chest swelled out, and he looked down at Mace with an  air  of  contempt  that
might have been convincing, if he hadn't been so careful to keep himself  just
out of arm's reach. "Not going nowhere, you, huh?"
     Mace glanced at Nick; Nick shrugged dolefully. Mace said, "It seems not."
     Knots of exhausted Balawai untied themselves and frayed to pieces to  let
the departing Akk Guard through. He joined the other, and along with the  dogs
they faded into the trees beyond the reach of the afternoon sun.
     Nick fingered his rifle. "Think they'll really go down there to Kar?"
     'Not at all," Mace said crisply. "They'll move up the switchback  to  cut
off our retreat."
     'Don't much like the sound of that. What's our move?"
     'You tell me, Major."
     Nick blinked. "You're kidding."
     'Not at all.  Given  our  victory  conditions-saving  as  many  of  these
people's lives as possible-what should we do?"
     'I can't believe you're asking me."
     'What I'm asking you," Mace said, "is not what we're  going  to  do,  but
what we should do. Let me put it another way: what does Kar think we'll do?"
     'Well..." Nick looked back up the trail, then  forward  down  toward  the
mouth of the canyon and the steamcrawler track. "We should split up. If we all
stay together, we all get caught either by whatever Kar's got  below,  or  the
guards and the ULF behind us.  If  the  prisoners  scatter,  some  might  slip
through while Kar's rounding up the rest."
     'Exactly." Mace pointed at the boys' father. "You. Get the others out  of
the trees. I want all of you on this rock. On  your  knees,  with  your  hands
behind your heads."
     The Balawai gaped. "Are you crazy?"
     'Y'know," Nick said, sighing, "I ask him that all  the  time.  Somehow  I
never get a straight answer."
     Mace folded his arms across his chest. "All those who don't  want  to  do
what I say are welcome to take their chances with the jungle and the ULF."
     The man turned away, shaking his head.
     'What are we gonna do?" Nick asked.
     'Something else."
     'Y'know, if you hadn't told Kar about going to the steamcrawler track, he
wouldn't be down there right now."
     'Yes: he would have overtaken us in the jungle, and we wouldn't have  had
a chance."
     'Wait-wait, I get it-" Understanding dawned on Nick's face.
     Mace nodded. "Back under the trees, the prisoners would  have  scattered.
Some might have escaped as you say. He's expecting us to scatter, just as  you
did. From his point of view, it's the obvious move: let some die to  save  the
rest. That's why I expected Kar to try this, instead: find a  place  where  he
could trap everyone. Because Kar and I have this in common: with these people,
it's all or nothing. He wants to give them all to the jungle. I want  to  send
them all home." Muscle bunched along Mace's jaw. "I am not willing to purchase
life with death, unless that death is my own."
     Nick looked impressed. "Kar's not an easy man to lie to. He's  so  hooked
into pelekotan that lying's a tricky business; I once saw him yank out a guy's
tongue-"
     Mace gave him a sidelong look. "Who lied? I told him  that  he  and  Depa
would be able to find me at the steamcrawler track this afternoon. The lie  is
in what he assumed I meant, not in what I said."
     'And you had me lead, because you figured he'd  be  able  to  guess  what
route I'd take-and you brought the'Akk Guards along so that he'd  be  able  to
track us..."
     Mace nodded.
     'But why?"
     'To get us all in a place just like this. Here, I'm sure he thinks he has
everyone boxed."
     'And he does."
     'So he's in no hurry to come and collect us. Now: what's the steamcrawler
track good for, in view of our purpose? It's a  broad  open  area,  where  any
passing gunship will spot these people, and it's clear  enough  to  use  as  a
landing zone."
     'Yeah..."
     'So how much good does it do him to cut us off from an open  area-"  Mace
reached inside his vest and pulled out the lightsabers. He  tossed  Depa's  to
Nick, who caught it reflexively. "-when all we need is a little time,  and  we
can make one of our own?"
     Nick stared down at the lightsaber in  his  hand.  "It  could  work,"  he
admitted. "And you want me to teach people warfare?"
     Mace shrugged. "This isn't warfare, it's dejarik."
     'Yeah, sure. When Kar shows up, you can be the one to clear the board. Go
right ahead." He ducked his head gloomily. "He's gonna kill us both, y'know."
     Mace's lightsaber found his palm, and a  meter-long  fountain  of  energy
grew from its emitter. "That remains to be seen."


     FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU


     It took only minutes to clear a landing zone. I had  used  the  Force  to
pile some of the smaller trees, intending to kindle their damp  wood  with  my
blade to make a huge smoking bonfire, but I didn't have to; before we had even
cleared the zone, three flights of gunships swarmed overhead. They didn't seem
to have much difficulty understanding  the  situation:  twenty-eight  kneeling
Balawai with fingers laced together behind their necks must have made  matters
clear enough.
     'Looks like we pulled it off," Nick said, though he seemed to take little
satisfaction from success. "We saved 'em. Wish they could return the favor."
     We had barely begun cutting when we had both felt Vastor's forces drawing
tight around us: a living noose. Nick had commented that my  little  deception
hadn't fooled him for long.
     I didn't answer. I had a feeling that in this particular game of dejarik,
Kar was not my true opponent.
     One of the gunships circled close overhead: offering itself as  bait,  to
see if hidden guns would open fire when it  came  within  range.  And  in  the
Force, I could feel the gunners inside it targeting Nick  and  me  with  laser
cannons; only our proximity to the Balawai held them back.
     As Nick would say: it was time to saddle up.
     But before we left, I crouched beside the father of  Urno  and  Nykl.  "I
want you to take a message to Colonel Geptun."
     He looked dazed, and his words  slurred  with  exhaustion.  "Geptun?  The
security chief in Pelek Baw? How am I supposed to get in to see him?"
     'He'll debrief you personally."
     'He will?"
     'Tell him the Jedi Master has handled his Jedi problem. Tell him that  if
he disarms his irregulars and withdraws the militia from  the  highland,  this
war is over. He has my word on it."
     The man goggled at me as though antlers had  suddenly  sprouted  from  my
forehead-and his astonishment was no greater than Nick's.
     'One more thing: remind him that in  less  than  a  week  I've  solved  a
problem he couldn't manage in four months."
     I rose, and stood over him so that my shadow fell across his face.
     'Tell him that if he does not do as I suggest, he'll be the problem.  And
I will solve him."
     't't led Nick off into the jungle without waiting for a reply.
     I did stop for a moment, though, and looked back through  the  trees,  to
where the boys' father held them in his arms as they waited for the descending
gunship.
     To where Keela held Pell, both of their heads lowered against  the  leaf-
whirl thrown up by the ship's turbojets.
     I don't expect to be forgiven. I don't even hope for it. I only hope that
someday, these children may be able to look at a Jedi without hatred in  their
hearts.
     That's the only reward I want.
     Night was falling, and the sun slanted  low  through  the  canyon  mouth.
Navigating was easy: they  loped  through  the  thickening  twilight,  heading
directly toward where the Force showed Mace maximum threat.
     'So, you've handled the militia's Jedi problem, have you?" Nick  muttered
as they jogged under the trees. "That'll come as a surprise to Kar  and  Depa,
I'm guessing."
     'I'm not interested in Kar," Mace said. "I'm  only  interested  in  Depa.
Where's the nearest subspace comm?"
     Nick shrugged. "The Lorshan Pass caverns. That's  our  base-it's  only  a
couple of days away, if we can ever lose the fraggin' gunships.  That's  where
we're heading anyway. Why?"
     'Less than a day after you get me subspace  comm,  Depa  and  I  will  be
leaving this planet. I am willing to waste no more time. I  need  subspace  to
call for extraction."
     'And me, right? You wouldn't leave your whole staff behind, would you?
     'You have seen what my word is worth."
     'You think maybe you could, like, send me out first? Because,  y'know,  I
don't want to be anywhere in this  whole  sector  when  Kar  finds  out  she's
leaving."
     'Leave Vaster to me."
     'And, uh, Master General, sir? Have you considered what you're  gonna  do
if she doesn't want to go?"
     'It's not up to her."
     'She could have gotten out of here weeks ago, if she wanted. How are  you
gonna make her go?"
     Mace said, "I have a hostage."
     'A what? Are you allowed to do that? I mean, do Jedi take hostages?"
     'There is one hostage a Jedi may lawfully take. I hope it won't  come  to
that."
     'Have you considered that she might not give  a  bucket  of  tusker  poop
about this hostage?"
     'I have," Mace said. His voice was cold, but the thought made a hot knife
twist in his belly.
     Nick stopped in his tracks. He said weakly,  "Have  you  considered  that
neither of us might live that long?"
     He said this because of the twelve snarling akk dogs who had materialized
around them as though the jungle had birthed them from the twilight.
     Fury chuffed into the Force like the steam from  their  nostrils.  Moving
out of the gloom-haunted trees came all six of the Akk
     Guards. They wore their vibroshields pushed up over their biceps, freeing
their hands for the assault rifles and grenade launchers they carried.
     Weapons for hunters stalking human prey.
     All six wore the human equivalent of the akks' snarls.
     None of them spoke.
     It was possible, at that moment, that none of them remembered how.
     The Force hummed with anger, as though every one of them resonated  on  a
single harmonic. Mace felt, then, the power of  the  Force-bonds  that  linked
them-but not to each other. Not one of the Akk Guards had a link  with  a  dog
like the one Chalk had had with Galthra.
     All eighteen of them, dogs and men alike, were Force-bonded not with each
other, but each with one single other, as though they were spokes on  a  wheel
of which he was the hub.
     The anger Mace felt was Kar's.
     He recognized its distinctive flavor.
     He said, "I think Kar might be a little upset about those prisoners after
all."
     Nick stood with his back against Mace's: where once Depa would have been.
     Where Depa should have been.
     Where, in any sane universe, she would be right now.
     Mace heard the familiar snap of an igniting blade  and  turned  to  Nick.
"Give me that."
     The young Korun's eyes flared green with the blade's  glow.  "What  am  I
supposed to fight with, then? My rapierlike wit?"
     Which would do him as much good as a lightsaber against twelve akk  dogs,
but Mace didn't tell him that. "You won't be fighting."
     'Says you."
     Instead of arguing, Mace reached over the blade  and  finger-snapped  the
end of his nose as though flicking away a fly.
     Nick blinked, flinching, blurting a reflexive obscenity, and by the  time
he remembered that he'd had a lightsaber in his hand, the  lightsaber  was  in
Mace's.
     'Vastor is a predator, not a HoloNet villain: they're not holding us here
so that he can gloat. If he planned to kill us, we'd already be dead."
     'So why are they holding us here?"
     A massive shadow approached through the trees: low and huge,  with  side-
bent legs and immense splay-clawed feet.
     Nick breathed, "Oh, I get it. He's bringing Depa."


     HOSTAGE

     The immense shadow crashed closer, its walk  a  symphony  of  splintering
trees.
     It was an ankkox.
     A massive armored saurian, the ankkox was  the  largest  land  animal  of
Haruun Kal. Ankkoxes were twice the size of grassers-more than half again  the
mass of a full-grown bantha-but built low and wide, with a broad dorsal  shell
like an oval soup plate turned upside down. The dorsal shell of this  one  was
nearly three meters wide, and well over four meters long. A drover's chair was
bolted to the top of the ankkox's crown shell, a convex  disc  of  armor  that
capped the beast's head; when an ankkox retracted its head and legs, its crown
shell and all six knee shells fit into gaps in its  armor  as  snugly  as  air
locks, enabling the ankkox to survive washes of volcanic gas that it  couldn't
outrun.
     This drover did not sit, but stood wide-legged on the crown armor  behind
the chair, brandishing a long pole that ended in a sharp-looking hook, to  use
as a goad in directing the  ankkox's  path.  Two  teardrop-shaped  shields  of
ultrachrome were pushed up onto his biceps.
     Kar Vaster.
     He moved only to direct the ankkox. His face held no expression.  He  did
not even look at Mace and Nick.
     The air around him shimmered with his rage.
     Smaller trees the ankkox shouldered aside; underbrush it  simply  crushed
beneath its speeder-sized feet. To get the ankkox through tree gaps too  small
to pass its huge shell where the trees were  too  large  to  overbear,  Vaster
would reach out with his goad, indicating specific  points  on  their  trunks-
which would be struck by some whirring object, invisibly fast,  that  impacted
with enough power to shatter the trunks and let it pass: the  creature's  tail
mace.
     The only part  of  the  ankkox's  body  that  was  not  armored  was  its
extensile, muscular, surprisingly flexible tail. The tail was  tipped  with  a
thick round ball of armor, and an adult ankkox could snap its tail faster than
the human eye could see, using that mace to accurately strike  targets  up  to
eight meters away with enough power to stun an akk  dog  or  shatter  a  small
tree.
     There was a time, before the reopening of Haruun  Kal  to  the  civilized
galaxy, when a mace taken from a juvenile ankkox was the traditional weapon of
Korun herders: dangerous to acquire. Difficult to use. Deadly in effect.
     On the central bulge of this ankkox's  dorsal  shell  had  been  built  a
howdah: a small curtained cabin framed with lammas wood, two meters by  three,
barely larger than the long padded chaise  within.  The  draped  canopy  stood
slightly higher than Mace was tall, bounded by a polished rail perhaps a meter
above the shell. The curtains, not to mention  the  fine-worked  wood  itself,
were probably spoils looted from some Balawai's home. Multiple layers of gauzy
lace, the curtains were translucent as smoke.
     With the sunset behind, Mace could see her silhouette.
     The ankkox crunched to a ponderous stop, settling onto its ventral  shell
with a long hiss through its teeth like gas  venting  from  pneumatic  landing
jacks. Vastor tucked the goad into its holster bolted to  the  ankkox's  crown
shell, then stepped forward over the drover chair and folded his thick-muscled
arms.
     He stared down into the eyes of the Jedi Master.
     The akk dogs started to growl low in their throats,  a  sound  more  felt
than heard, like the subterranean precursor of a coming groundquake.
     The wind died; even the rustle of leaves went silent.
     In the hush of fading day, the Force showed Mace a shatterpoint.
     The darkness of the jungle, not of the Sith.
     Life without the restraints of civilization.
     'We're done," Nick said. "You get that, don't you? We're  as  done  as  a
week-old roast. What do they call it in the  army?  Aid  and  comfort  to  the
enemy?"
     'Be quiet. Don't draw attention to yourself."
     'Great idea. Maybe they'll forget I'm here."
     'This isn't about aid and comfort to the enemy," Mace said. "If this were
going to be anything military, they'd put us under arrest. We'd be taken  back
to have some kind of show trial witnessed by the rest  of  the  ULF.  Instead,
we're out here in the jungle, and the only witnesses are Kar, Depa, and  these
akks-human and saurian."
     'So they're just gonna kill us."
     'If we're lucky," Mace said, "it's going to be a dogfight."
     'A ^ogfight? If we're lucky? Okay, sure.  Let's  not  even  try  to  make
sense. Just tell me what I'm supposed to do."
     'You're supposed to remember that you are an officer of the Grand Army of
the Republic."
     'I just took the fraggin' oath three hours ago-"
     'Three hours or thirty years. It makes no difference. You have  sworn  to
conduct yourself to the credit of the Republic as its commissioned officer."
     'So that kind of rules out wetting my pants and sobbing like a baby, huh?
"
     'Stay calm. Show no weakness. Think of Vastor as a wild akk:  do  nothing
to trigger his prey drive. And shut up."
     'Oh, sure. Is that an order, General?"
     'Will making it an order help you do it?"
     Above on the ankkox's shell, Vastor had been staring  silently  while  an
aurora of rage built in the air around  him.  Only  now  did  Mace  meet  the,
'orpelek's gaze.
     Mace allowed his lip to curl with a hint of contempt.
     Nick whispered, "What are you doing?"
     Mace's gaze never wavered. "Nothing you need concern yourself with."
     'Urn, maybe I should have told you," the young Korun muttered  nervously.
"Kar doesn't like to be stared at."
     'I know."
     'It gets him mad."
     'He's already mad."
     'Yeah. And you're makin' him madder."
     'That's my intention."
     'Y'know," Nick said, "I'm gonna give up asking  if  you're  crazy.  Let's
consider it a standing question, huh? Every time you open your mouth, go ahead
and assume I'm  wondering  if  nikkle  nuts  have  started  falling  out  your
earholes. 'Good morning, Nick.' Are you crazy? 'Nice day, isn't it?'  Are  you
crazy?"
     Mace hissed from the side of his mouth, "Will you be quiet?"
     'Are you crazy?" Nick ducked his head. "Sorry. Just a reflex."
     Vastor's jaw worked, and a wordless growl escaped  from  his  tight-drawn
lips.
     You were sent for.
     Mace sighed, looking bored.
     Vastor's growl thickened.
     Defiance carries a price.
     Nick cocked his head, frowning. "This isn't about the prisoners?"
     Mace looked at him sidelong: Nick had understood. So Vaster  was  talking
to both of them-or rather, to Mace, but at least partially for the benefit  of
Nick. He glanced up at the howdah.
     Likely for the benefit of Depa as well.
     'Of course it's about  the  prisoners,"  Mace  said  softly.  "He's  just
warming up. Play along."
     Mace hooked his thumbs in his belt and walked casually forward.  "I  told
you already: I am not to be sent for. Since you have  brought  her  to  me  as
ordered, I'll see her now."
     The shimmer around Vaster deepened, but he held himself perfectly  still.
His growl sharpened into a vine cat's hunting cough.,' don't take orders. Depa
is here at her own request.
     'Oh?"
     She came to say good-bye.
     'I'm not going anywhere."
     Vastor's response  was  a  silent  grinning  gape  that  showed  all  his
inhumanly sharp teeth. He gestured, and the ring of  akks  and  humans  parted
before him.
     'I told you he's gonna kill us!" Nick hissed. "I toldyo't'ti't't Shee,  I
hate it when I'm right!"
     'Like I said before: think of Vaster as a wild  akk.  He  won't  kill  us
unless there's no other way to get what he wants."
     'Yeah? What does he want?"
     'Same as any akk dog: to assert his dominance. Defend his territory.  And
his pack."
     'And you think he won't kill us for taking those prisoners?"
     Mace shrugged. "Not you, anyway. You're  subordinate:  you  don't  really
count."
     'Oh, sure.  Thanks  a  lot-"  Nick  stopped  in  mid-sarcasm  and  looked
thoughtful. "Know what? I think I actually mean that."
     'You're welcome."
     Vaster spun the hooked goad, and the  ankkox  lumbered  toward  Mace  and
Nick, its tail mace whipping through threatening arcs around it.
     'So, what?" Nick kept on under his breath. "You  think  he's  just  gonna
throw you out of here? 'You got till sundown to get off my planet'?"
     'Something like that."
     'What about this hostage you were talkin' about?"
     'We'll see if we need him."
     'Urn, it's not me, is it? Because, y'know, to tell you the truth, I don't
think Depa likes me all that much-or even, y'know, any. At all."
     'Hush."
     The ankkox stopped. The beak-curve of the crown armor on its landspeeder-
sized skull lowered to the ground at Mace's feet. The beast's eyes were orange
and gold and as large as Mace's head, and they peered up from under the  curve
of armor with melancholy saurian patience.
     Vaster vaulted to the ground. Make your good-byes. Then you are leaving.
     'Nice doggy..." Nick said with a sickly forced  smile.  He  gave  a  weak
laugh. "Nice-"
     Vastor's immense left arm flashed at Nick in a blinding  palm  slap  that
would have taken his head right  off  before  he  could  even  blink-but  that
massive arm was intercepted by the heel of Mace's open hand.
     Mace's fingers locked momentarily around Vastor's wrist. "He's with  me,"
he said, and before  the  lor  pelek  could  react,  he  released  Vaster  and
backhanded Nick off his feet.
     Nick lay crumpled on the leaf  mold,  stunned,  staring  up  at  Mace  in
astonishment.  Through  their  Force-link,  Mace  sent  a  pulse  of   private
reassurance: an invisible deadpan wink.
     Nick played along. "What was that for?"
     The Jedi Master jabbed a finger at his face. "You are an officer  in  the
Grand Army of the Republic. Act like one."
     'How does one act?"
     Mace turned back to Vastor. "I apologize for him."
     Vaster grunted. His mother should apologize.
     'Any problem you have with him, you bring to me." Mace had  to  bend  his
neck back to look up into the lor peleKs eyes. "I  struck  one  of  your  men,
earlier. I apologize for that as well."  He  met  Vastor's  glare  lazily.  "I
should have hit you."
     You are Depa's Master, and my doshalo,  and  I  do  not  wish  you  harm.
Vastor's rumble went low and silken. Don't touch me again.
     Mace sighed, still looking bored. He said to Nick, "Don't get up," and to
Vastor, "Excuse me," and he sidestepped the lor pelek to vault onto the dorsal
shell of the ankkox.
     He had time to wonder if his pretense of confidence was fooling anyone.
     Mace looked up at the howdah, now only a step or two away. His mouth  had
gone entirely dry.
     He still couldn't feel her.
     Even this close, finally, after all this time, whatever presence she cast
in the Force blended invisibly into the jungle night around them.
     The sick weight gathered in his chest again: the one that had  been  born
weeks ago in Palpatine's office. The one that had grown heavier in Pelek  Baw,
and had nearly crushed him last night in the outpost bunker. That  weight  had
lifted somehow through this long afternoon: maybe it was because he'd been  so
sure he was doing the right thing.
     The only thing.
     And now he was a meter away  from  being  face  to  face  with  her:  his
Padawan: his protegee: the woman for whose sake he had left  behind  Coruscant
and the Jedi Temple and the simple abstractions of strategic  war.  For  whose
sake he had plunged into this jungle. Had  subjected  himself  to  the  harsh,
complicated, intractable reality behind the  strategies  that  had  seemed  so
simple and so clean back in the sterile chambers of the Council.
     He discovered that once again, he didn't know what he should do.
     Just seeing her shadow on the curtains had loosened his grip on right and
wrong.
     Palpatine's words echoed inside his head:
     Depa Billaba was your Padawan. And she  is  still  perhaps  your  closest
friend, is she not?
     Is she? Mace thought.,' wish I knew.
     If she must be slain, are you so certain you can strike her down?
     Right now, he wasn't entirely certain he could look at her.
     He was that frightened of what he might see.
     ...' have become the darkness in the jungle...
     A slim brown hand took one  edge  of  the  curtains.  Long  fingers,  but
strong: nails broken, and black with grime-the shape of the
     O. Ollttl ILI't'trUII
     palm, the faint rolling texture of vein and tendon and bone, that he knew
as vividly as he did his own-and  the  curtain  was  streaked  with  mold  and
stained, and hand-patched with dark thread that showed like scars against  the
lace, and it draped around her hand as she drew it slowly  aside,  and  Mace's
heart hammered and he nearly turned away, because  he  should  have  known  he
wouldn't meet her in the dawn, at  the  beginning  of  a  day,  even  among  a
firestorm raining from gunship cannons; he should have  known  that  was  only
wishful thinking, a solace from the Force; he  should  have  known  that  they
would only meet again in the twilight shadow-
     But fear, too, leads into the dark.
     He thought, I have met the darkness in this jungle already. I've felt  it
in my own heart. I have fought it hand to hand and mind to mind. Why should  I
fear to see it on her face?
     The knot in his gut untied itself.
     All his anxiety drained from him. All  his  darkness  trickled  away.  He
stood empty of everything save for fatigue  and  the  pains  of  his  battered
flesh, and a calm Jedi expectation: ready to accept the turn of the Force,  no
matter what it may bring.
     She drew the curtain aside.
     She sat on the edge of a long, padded chaise. She  wore  the  tatters  of
Jedi robes over the rough homespun of a jungle Korun. Her hair was as  he  had
seen at the outpost: ragged, greasy, hacked short as though she'd used a knife
to trim it without the benefit of a mirror. Her face was every bit as thin  as
he had seen it: her cheekbones sharp, and her jaw going  prominent.  The  burn
scar was there, from one corner of her hardship-thinned mouth to the point  of
her jaw-
     But instead of a blindfold, she wore the strip of dirty rag  tied  around
her forehead, concealing the Greater Mark of Illumination.
     Or the scar it had left behind...
     The Lesser Mark still glinted gold on the bridge of her nose, and  though
her eyes were bloodshot and pain-haunted, her gaze was clear, and level,  and,
after all, she was Depa Billaba.
     Whatever had happened to her; whatever she had seen, or done.
     She was still Depa.
     With an effort that nearly broke Mace's heart, she curved her mouth  into
a smile, and she extended a hand that trembled, just a little, as Mace reached
to take it. It felt fragile in his, as though her bones were as  hollow  as  a
bird's, but her grip was strong and warm.
     'Mace," she said slowly. A single jewel of a  tear  welled  in  one  eye.
"Mace. Master Windu."
     'Hello, Depa." He opened his vest and produced her  lightsaber.  "I  have
kept this safe for you."
     As she reached for it her hand trembled even more. "Thank  you,  Master,"
she said slowly, with exhausted formality. "I am honored to  receive  it  from
your hand."
     Her smile turned more  genuine.  She  looked  down  at  her  light-saber,
turning it over and over in her hand as though she didn't quite remember  what
it was for. She lowered her head until he could no longer see her  eyes.  "Oh,
Mace... How could you?"
     'Depa?"
     'How could you be so arrogant? So stupid? So  blind?"  Though  her  words
were angry, her voice was only tired. "I wish... You should have come  to  me,
Mace. Straight to me. Those people-they're not worth this. Not worth  you  not
knowing. You should have asked me-I could have told you-"
     'Why innocent children had to die?"
     Her head hung even lower. "We all have to die, Mace."
     'I'm not here to argue with you, Depa. I'm here to take you home."
     'Home..." she echoed, and raised her head  again.  Her  eyes  were  event
horizons: infinitely deep, and infinitely dark. "You use that word  as  though
it means something."
     'It does to me."
     'But it doesn't. Not anymore. Not even to you. You just haven't  realized
it yet." She sighed a bleak, bitter chuckle as dark as her eyes and swung  her
trembling hand at the jungle around them. "This is home. As much home  as  any
place will ever be. For any of us. For all of us. That's what  I  brought  you
here to learn, Mace. But now you've messed everything up. It's  falling  apart
and flying off in all direc tions. It's all wrong, and it's all too late,  and
I should have known it would happen like this, I  should  have  known  because
you're just too blasted arrogant to mind your own  business!"  Her  voice  had
risen to a screech, and a drop of blood seeped from a crack in her lower lip.
     "You are my business here."
     'Exactly. Exactly!" She snatched his wrist and yanked him down toward her
with astonishing strength. ",'  was  your  business  here.  Those  people  had
nothing to do with you. Nor you with them. But you can't stop being  a  Jedi,"
she said bitterly. "No matter what. With the existence of the whole Jedi Order
at stake, you had to play HoloNet hero. Now  your  business  here  is  ruined.
Destroyed. Everything is wasted. It's too late. Too late for all  of  us.  You
have to leave here, Mace. You have to leave right now, or Kar will kill you."
     'I'm planning on it," Mace agreed. "And you're coming with me."
     'Oh," she said. The fire inside her dwindled, and her strength  with  it.
Her hand went slack on Mace's arm. "Oh...  you  think-you  think  I  can  just
leave..."
     'You must leave, Depa. I don't know what you think is holding you here-"
     'You don't understand. How could you? You haven't  seen-I  haven't  shown
you-You can't possibly understand..."
     Mace thought of his hallucination at the outpost. "I understand," he said
slowly, "all there is to understand. And now I believe it."
     'Do you understand that,' am not in command here?"
     Mace shrugged. "Is anyone?"
     'Exactly," she said. "Exactly. Master Yoda-Master  Yoda  would  say,  You
see, but you do not see."
     'Depa-"
     'You are alive right now because Kar doesn't want to upset me. That's the
only reason. Not because I can order him. To do anything. Because I ashed him.
I asked to give you a chance to run away. Because Kar-because Kar likes me-"
     Mace turned and looked down  at  the  people  and  akks  in  the  jungle.
Twilight was deepening, and glowvines were beginning to  pulse  to  life.  The
akks stirred uneasily, muttering deep  half  growls  down  in  their  enormous
chests. Nick sat on the ground, knees drawn up and wrapped  by  his  arms.  He
kept his head down, studiously avoiding looking at Vaster. The lor pelek paced
back and forth in front of the ankkox's head, stalking like a hungry vine cat,
flicking glances up at Mace and Depa and away again, as though he did not want
to be caught looking.
     'Vaster commands the ULF-?"
     "There is no ULF!" Depa hissed. "The ULF is a name, that's all. I made it
up! The Upland Liberation Front is a make-believe  bogey  on  which  to  blame
every raid and ambush and theft and petty sabotage and I don't know what  all.
The militia's going crazy looking for a pattern  to  our  strikes.  Trying  to
figure out our strategy. Because there is no pattern. No strategy. There is no
ULF. There is just this clan, and that family, and one gang here  and  another
there. That's all. Ragged Korun bandits and murderers."
w     'Your reports-"
     'Reports." She looked like she wanted to grab him and shake him, but  was
just too tired. "What should I have told you? You've seen a little  of  Haruun
Kal. What could I have said to make you understand?"
     'You don't have to make me understand. All you have to do  is  come  with
me."
     'Mace, listen to me: I can't." She sagged, and lowered her face into  her
hands. "Kar is willing to let you go only because I am staying.  To  keep  you
away from me. If I leave with you... Going through the jungle, Mace: think  of
it. On foot, on grassers. Even in a steam-crawler. All the way back  to  Pelek
Baw? Haven't you seen enough of him today to know that nowhere in  the  jungle
could you ever be safe?"
     The weight in Mace's chest lightened, just a bit. He swallowed, and found
that his breath came more easily.
     She was afraid for him. She had not fallen so  far  that  she  no  longer
cared.
     That was his victory right there.
     'We won't be going through the jungle," he  said.  "I  have  a  ship  on-
station with a battalion of troopers. My comm's damaged, or we'd be on our way
right now. Nick says you have subspace at the Lorshan Pass caverns. We can  be
out of the system less than a day after we get there."
     She lifted her head again, and there was  still  no  hope  in  her  eyes.
"It'll take two days to get there. If you're still here in two hours, Kar will
kill you. Two minutes."
     'Leave Vaster to me." Mace leaned forward, resting his  forearms  on  the
howdah's polished rail. "I am not leaving without you."
     'You have to."
     'Let me put it another way."
     Mace took a deep breath. "Master Depa  Billaba:  by  my  authority  as  a
Senior Member of the Jedi Council, and  general  of  the  Grand  Army  of  the
Republic, you are hereby relieved of command of Republic forces on Haruun Kal,
uniformed and irregular. You are relieved of all duties  and  responsibilities
in the action on this planet. You are suspended from the Jedi Council, pending
investigation of your actions on Haruun Kal, and you are  ordered  to  proceed
with all due speed to Coruscant,  where  you  will  present  yourself  to  the
Council for judgment."
     Depa shook her head. "You can't-you can't-"
     'Depa," Mace said sadly, "you are under arrest."
     'This is ridiculous-"
     'Yes. And absolutely serious. You know me, Depa. How many arrests did  we
make, all those years? You know I will deliver my  prisoner,  or  die  in  the
attempt."
     She nodded slowly, and she found a smile once more: a sad,  quiet  smile,
edged with bitter knowledge. "Will you accept my parole? If I give my word not
to... attempt escape?"
     'I will always trust you, Depa."
     Sudden tears sparkled again in her eyes, and she turned  her  face  away.
"How many times are you going to make me save your life?"
     'Just this once more," he said. "You can come with me, or you  can  watch
me die. Your choice."
     Her shoulders twitched, and shook, and Mace  for  a  moment  thought  she
might be sobbing, but then her soft dry chuckle reached his ears.
     'I have missed you, Mace." Her eyes sparkled with tears.  "I  can't  tell
you how I've missed you. Of course you knew exactly the spot where my defenses
would crumble. But I'm not your real problem," she said tiredly. "What are you
going to do about Kar?"
     'You're my only problem," Mace told her. "I found your shatter-point;  do
you think I'd miss his?"
     'I think he doesn't have one."
     'That," said Mace Windu, "remains to be seen."
     'You and your shatterpoints." Her sad smile was  dazzling  on  her  tear-
stained face. "Who but Mace Windu would think to take him-^hostage?"
     Mace's head twitched to the right in a Korun shrug. "I was the  only  one
available."
     Mace leapt lightly down from the ankkox. "Kar Vaster. We need to talk."
     We do not. Vaster did not meet his eyes. As you said: the  next  time  we
meet, there may be a fight.
     'What I said was," Mace  replied  lazily,  "the  next  time  we're  alone
together, there may be a fight. But I gave you too much credit. I  mean,  that
is why you brought all your puppies along, isn't it? You certainly didn't seem
interested in standing up to me without them."
     Vastor's head turned like a steamcrawler's gun turret. What?
     'You have a problem with me?" Mace spread his hands. "I'm right here."
     Tendons in Vastor's neck cranked his head down a centimeter  at  a  time.
She doesn't want you hurt.
     'Depa? Do you plan to hide behind her forever?"  Mace  folded  his  arms.
"Always find a reason to back down, don't you? I admire your... creativity."
     The Akk Guards stared.
     All twelve akk dogs hunched and coiled  their  haunches,  tails  whipping
forward past their shoulder spines: ready to pounce. Vaster snarled and lunged
convulsively past Mace. He snatched Nick's arm and hauled the young  Korun  to
his feet, holding him out toward Mace.
     'Hey, y'know, ow, huh?"
     I have grassers saddled and supplied. Take them and the boy and go.
     His filed-sharp teeth seemed to glow in the vine-lit gloom. Take them and
live.
     'You know," Mace said, "I don't much care for your tone."
     Vastor's eyes widened. His mouth worked silently.
     'And take your hand off my aide. Now."
     Vaster found his voice: a roar of black rage. A violent shove  sent  Nick
stumbling forward. Only a grab at Mace's shoulders kept him on  his  feet.  He
looked up into the Jedi Master's eyes and gave him a  sickly  grin.  "Remember
that question I wasn't gonna ask anymore?"
     GO. Vastor's roar carried tectonic power. Go before I forget  my  promise
to spare you.
     Mace turned to one of the Akk Guards. "Does he always yammer  like  this?
He'd quiet down if you got him fixed."
     The guard went pale. He shook his head urgently.  "Really,  really  don't
want to talk to Kar like this, you. Really really really."
     'Oh, right. Sure. He's not so good with Basic." Mace  hooked  his  thumbs
inside his vest.
     Tendons stood out like cables in the lor peleKs neck. His shimmering rage
went scarlet, glowing in the twilit  gloom,  as  though  his  skin  were  lava
pouring from a volcano's mouth.
     Slowly, deliberately, his left hand tucked behind the shield on his right
arm. He pulled it down into fighting position, carefully  avoiding  its  razor
edges. Just as slowly and deliberately, he did the same with the other.
     Muscle rippled in his arms as he squeezed the handgrips, and the  shields
whined to  life.  He  brought  them  together  back  to  back,  generating  an
earsplitting squeal that made even the akk dogs flinch.
     From behind Mace's shoulder,  Nick  whispered,  "Are  you  sure  I'm  not
allowed to wet myself?"
     Mace walked calmly out of the center of the ring, straight toward Vaster,
thumbs still hooked inside his vest. "You do that a lot. No doubt your puppies
find it pretty scary."
     Looking straight up into Vastor's eyes,  Mace  swung  his  vest  open  to
display the handgrip of his lightsaber.
     Then he shrugged out of the vest, folded it once, and tossed it over  his
shoulder with effortless accuracy, right into the hands of an astonished  Nick
Rostu. With his lightsaber still inside it.
     'That's how much you scare me."
     Vastor's shields parted, and the jungle went silent.
     'Everybody here knows this has nothing to do with Depa," Mace said. "This
has to do with those Balawai you were too stupid and weak to hold."
     Vastor's legs coiled like the aides' haunches. They were mine! MINE! Mine
to kill. Mine to spare. They were MINE to give to the justice of the jungle-
     'Until you met me. Then they were mine," Mace said. "Mine to let go."
     'I'll show you stupid and weak-
     'You already have."
     Vaster shifted his weight to throw himself into a leap, but then froze as
though an invisible leash had snapped tight around his neck. He  glanced  back
at the shadow behind the curtains of the howdah for a moment. When  he  turned
toward Mace once more, his lips were drawn back in a predator's grin, and  his
eyes burned like twin calderae.
     Depa prefers that you live. But she doesn't mind if you get hurt.
     Mace shrugged. "As long as she won't mind when you get hurt."
     Vaster began to unbuckle  his  shields.  Mace  turned  his  back  on  the
lorpelek contemptuously and strolled toward the center of the ring of akks and
people.
     There was nothing either slow or deliberate about the  way  Vastor  shook
the shields off his arms: a whipping snap of the wrist that flung them down to
clatter against the rim of the ankkox's shell.
     Nick held the bundle of Mace's vest and weapon uncertainly. "Um, guess  I
should have told you: that big-dog stuff doesn't work on Kar."
     'On  the  contrary,"  the  Jedi  Master  replied  softly.  "It's  working
perfectly."
     Nick blinked.
     Mace said, "As for you, though-"
     'Don't worry about me. I know exactly what to do." He tucked
     Mace's vest under one arm and trotted toward the nearest  Akk  Guard.  "A
hundred credits says the Jedi makes Kar cry like a baby! Who's in?"
     The lor pelek crouched and lowered one hand to the ground, digging in the
leaf mold, his sweat-glistening chest heaving, breath  pumping  darkness  into
him and out again. Gathering rage. Gathering power.
     The shimmer around him had gone from red to black.
     Mace shook his arms loose. "Rules?"
     Vastor's reply was the snort of a hunting akk. Jungle rules. A  burst  of
power launched the lor pelek as a human missile, clawing his way  through  the
twilight toward the Jedi Master.
     Jungle rules it is, then, Mace thought, and leapt to meet him in midair.


     JUNGLE RULES


     They   collided with a crash that  shook  the  jungle  around  them.  The
collision was not just of two human bodies, but of two  node-channels  of  the
Force: invisible energy crackled, and vivid blue gap-sparks arced from leaf to
leaf in the canopy above. For a moment, they hung in  the  air,  supported  by
power, grappling, tearing at each other's  flesh.  The  akk  dogs  lunged  and
whirled and slashed the air with their  tails.  The  guards  clashed  together
their shields, roaring with ferocious animal exuberance.
     Vastor seemed to be all teeth and claws and fierce snarling assault. Arms
like girders of durasteel caught Mace  in  an  unbreakable  hug,  pinning  the
Jedi's elbows to his creaking ribs. Mace answered swifter than thought with an
instinctive head-butt that split the skin on one of Vastor's  cheekbones.  The
lor pelek lowered his head to Mace's shoulder as though to snuggle in  like  a
lover-then sank his needle teeth  deep  into  Mace's  neck,  chewing  for  his
carotid artery.
     Mace jerked a knee up to slam the inside of Vastor's thigh;  Vastor  only
grunted and bit down harder, twisting his head from side to side like  an  akk
worrying off a tusker's leg. His jaw pressure on the  artery  was  restricting
its blood flow; billowing clouds of darkness gathered in Mace's brain-but when
Mace fired the knee again, Vaster jerked his legs out of the way.
     Mace's knee caught him a decimeter below the navel.
     This brought a sharper grunt and a snarl that vibrated  in  Mace's  neck,
but instead of withdrawing his knee for another strike, Mace dug it in harder,
forcing Vastor's body away from his own. This created just enough  space  that
Mace could slip one arm up between their chests, and could stab his  stiffened
fingers into the notch of Vastor's collarbone.
     And shove.
     With a convulsive gasp of astonishment, the  lor  pelek  released  Mace's
neck. Mace kept on shoving, jamming his fingers into Vastor's windpipe. Vaster
gagged, and his massive arms loosened.
     They fell together, tumbling, and as Mace finally pushed Vastor  off  him
he managed to sneak in a quick snapping kick to the  point  of  Vastor's  chin
that sent the lor pelek whirling like a topspun ball.
     Mace recovered his Force-touch in time to flip  upright  and  land  in  a
balanced  crouch;  Vastor  landed  on  all  fours,  absorbing  the  shock   as
effortlessly as a vine cat.
     They looked at each other.
     Blood ran from the bite wound on Mace's neck, painting his  shoulder  and
part of his chest scarlet, but it was only a trail, not a jet: the artery must
have remained intact. A similar trail rolled from  Vastor's  split  cheek  and
dripped from his jaw.
     Neither man appeared to notice.
     Vastor's growl resonated in Mace's chest. Not many men can break my grip.
You won't do it twice.
     Mace didn't answer. Vastor was probably right.
     He was suddenly, acutely aware that  he  hadn't  slept  since  the  night
before the fight in the notch pass. The night when a bark-drunk Lesh had  come
to him in tears, to tell him what Kar and the Akk Guards would teach  him,  if
he lived long enough.
     It seemed like years ago.
     He wondered briefly if the lor pelek would have gone ahead and  torn  out
his throat despite what he claimed Depa had told him,  or  if  he  would  have
settled for the strangle.
     He decided he could live without knowing the answer.
     That is, if he lived at all.
     Vastor stalked toward him on all fours. Was that  Jedi  fighting?  Poking
and pinching? A little jab to stop the big dog? I am not impressed.
     Mace stood motionless except for  the  heaving  of  his  chest.  He  knew
already he could not match Vastor for raw power. With each breath, he stripped
away another layer of restraint and inhibition. Another layer of serenity.  He
had to move his inner peace out of the way to let in the joy. The thrill.  The
sheer okay-why-not-let's-FIGHT. Because Vaapad was more than just  a  form  of
lightsaber combat.
     It was a state of mind.
     Night had deepened upon the jungle, and around them  glowvines  began  to
pulse faintly. To use Vaapad now, out here, was incredibly dangerous-almost as
dangerous as not using Vaapad.
     The ultimate answer for power is skill.
     'Want to be impressed?" Mace said. "Let's  see  the  impression  my  boot
makes on your face."
     Without warning, Vastor's stalk became a lightning lunge, fingers  hooked
like talons, his arms sweeping wide to close on Mace once more-but Mace wasn't
there anymore. A slight sidestep and a weave of his  head  snuck  him  to  the
outside of Vastor's lunge, and his fist whipped backhand to snap Vastor in the
base of the skull as he passed: a knockout blow.
     But Vastor must have felt it coming; he pitched forward, rolling with the
punch so that it flipped him end for end. He landed  in  perfect  balance  and
sprang again, straight up; the kick Mace had aimed at his kidneys only  grazed
his calf muscle. He used the impact to whirl in the air so that he could  fall
upon the Jedi Master like a branch leopard taking a tusker.
     But what he fell upon was Mace's  fist,  driven  upward  into  his  solar
plexus by the combined power of the Force  and  nearly  fifty  years  of  Jedi
combat training.
     Mace's hand sank in to the wrist, and Vastor's fighting snarl  became  an
agonized struggle for breath. Mace used the Force to hurl him off and send him
tumbling through the air to slam into the flank of an agitated akk  dog.  Eyes
glazing, half stunned, the lor pelek slid bonelessly down  the  akk's  armored
ribs, and staggered as his feet skidded over gnarled roots.
     Before he could find his balance, Mace was on him. "Impressed yet?"
     Standing toe to toe, the top of Mace's head barely came to the  level  of
Vastor's chin, and you could have tucked Mace's whole thick-muscled upper body
inside Vastor's chest with room to spare. And even hurt,  lurching  drunkenly,
Vaster still could whip his arms in blindingly fast  raking  slaps  at  Mace's
head and wounded neck. But where  Vastor's  speed  was  blinding,  Mace's  was
invisible. Not one of those slaps connected.
     Before Vastor could even focus his eyes, Mace had hit him six times:  two
thundering hooks to his short ribs, a knee slamming hard into the  same  thigh
he'd hit before, an elbow snapping up to  the  point  of  his  chin,  and  two
devastating palm strikes to either hinge of his jaw.
     An ordinary man would have been unconscious. Vastor seemed to be  getting
stronger.
     Vastor fired another of those  blinding  slaps.  This  time,  instead  of
ducking, Mace countered with a whirring hook that met the lor peleKs  swinging
arm directly on the nerve that ran up the inside of the biceps.  Vastor  threw
the other even harder-which only made the inside of that arm connect that much
harder with Mace's coun-terhook.
     Vastor's mighty arms spasmed and dropped limply to his  sides.  "This  is
called Vaapad, Kar." A fierce light burned in Mace's eyes. "How many  arms  do
you see?"
     Then he hit Vastor twice in the nose before  the  lor  pelek  could  even
blink.
     Vastor howled in pain and raging disbelief, falling back against the  akk
dog's flank once more, twisting and turning to try to find some way  to  avoid
the Jedi's flashing hands.
     Mace stayed with him, pinning him to  the  akk's  flank,  fists  whirling
through Vaapad flurries, striking not to disable or to kill,
     i IILII OIUTLI't't
     but instead to hurt: stinging flicks to soft tissue,  smashing  ears  and
nose, stabbing up under the chin.
     The akk dog suddenly lurched away from them, giving Vastor half  a  meter
of clearance. The lor pelek sprang sideways, diving away.
     Mace let him go. "Go on and run, Kar. This is over. You lose. I'm the big
dog here-"
     Vastor turned his dive into a roll and spun to face the Jedi Master  from
one knee, and before Mace had even finished speaking the Force whirled  around
him and Mace found himself wrenched off the ground, hurtling backward  through
the air to slam against the smooth-barked gray trunk of a  meter-thick  lammas
tree. The whole tree shivered with the impact, and  a  spiral  galaxy  birthed
itself inside Mace's head.
     He thought, I was wondering when we'd get to this part.
     Vastor's face tightened. Strength must have been returning to his  nerve-
punched arms already, because he managed to raise one and  gesture  as  though
throwing a stone; Mace was whirled forward from the tree to crash against  the
skull of an astonished akk dog.
     The impact folded him over the dog's head and blasted the breath from his
lungs; the dog's crown spines gashed Mace's abdomen, and when it  tossed  Mace
aside with a twitch of its head like a Nymalian water-ox, his blood  ran  down
the black outer shells of its eyes.
     Jedi Padawans learn to counter  Force  kinesis  before  they  even  begin
lightsaber training. Still in the air, Mace sensed the flow of power that held
Vastor's grip upon him; with a sigh, he allowed his center-Vastor's  point  of
Force contact-to relax and ground Vastor's power back into the  jungle  around
them...
     And that jungle came to life.
     A gripleaf trailer snaked down from above and seized one of Mace's ankles
in its unbreakable clutch. His airborne tumble became  a  wide-swinging  head-
down arc.
     Gripleaf trailers only grew tighter as their victim struggled, and  their
fibers were nearly as strong as durasteel cable; they could not be  broken  by
mortal strength. This one squeezed his ankle, drawing blood with the edges  of
its sharp waxy leaves. Another trailer reached toward  his  other  ankle,  and
from his upside-down vantage he could see  a  thick  blade-thorned  length  of
brassvine curving toward his neck.
     He almost reached into the Force for his lightsaber-
     But that would be admitting defeat.
     Time to be clever.
     He used the Force to shove the gripleaf trailer so that the  arc  of  his
swing sent him whirling out over the ring of dogs and  men.  One  of  the  Akk
Guards smirked at him as he swung overhead: "Big dog? More like  little  tusk-
pig."
     When his swing carried him back in, Mace reached down and grabbed the Akk
Guard by the arm, yanking him into the air. Drawing upon the Force for a burst
of strength, Mace whipped the astonished Guard up and over and used  the  edge
of his razor-sharp shield to slice through the trailer before releasing him to
flail helplessly through the air and crash into the jungle darkness.
     Mace turned his own fall into a flip that landed  him  on  an  akk  dog's
shoulders. He bounded off into the air-
     And Vaster's Force grip seized him again.
     Vaster was on his feet now, and his arms didn't seem  hurt  at  all.  His
blood-smeared mouth spread wide in a howl of triumph as he yanked Mace through
the multicolored glowvine-shaded night, pulling him in  while  he  opened  his
arms for that lethal embrace.
     Mace thought: Well, if you insist...
     Instead of resisting or grounding the power of Vastor's Force grip,  Mace
added his own strength to it. The speed of his flight suddenly doubled; Vastor
had only time to widen his eyes in dismay as Mace  flipped  headfirst  in  the
air. The top of his head speared into Vastor's gut and drove the lor pelek  to
the ground as though he'd been hit by a concussion missile.
     On the other hand, Vastor's stomach wasn't much softer than  that  lammas
he'd slammed Mace into; the impact didn't  do  Mace's  head  a  lot  of  good,
either.
     Another spiral galaxy blossomed where the first had been as  Mace  rolled
off him, lying on his back while he watched stellar clusters wheel inside  his
skull. Vastor lay beside him, making faint panting noises while  he  tried  to
pull air into his spasming chest.
     Vastor's breath began to return in great whooping gasps,  and  Mace  knew
his time was running out. He shook the stars out of his head and reached  down
to his ankle to unwrap the severed gripleaf trailer. Limp now, dying,  it  was
unresisting as an ordinary rope; Mace took one end in each fist, and as Vastor
rolled over and gained his hands and knees, Mace slipped a loop of the trailer
over the lorpelek's head from behind and tightened it around his throat.
     Vastor straightened and his hands went to his throat, clawing  at  Mace's
improvised garrote, but not even he was strong  enough  to  break  a  gripleaf
trailer with his bare hands. His face darkened, swelling with blood; the  back
of his neck bulged; veins writhed across his temples and forehead.
     Ten seconds, Mace thought, hanging on, wedging his  knees  into  Vastor's
back. Ten seconds and out.
     Vastor got one foot under him.
     Mace swallowed, gasping for breath as he tried  to  tighten  the  trailer
around the lorpeleKs throat.
     Pure will powered Vastor to his feet. He didn't even seem to  notice  the
weight of a large Jedi Master hanging down his back.
     Mace thought: Here it comes.
     In an eyeblink, Vastor's grip shifted from the gripleaf trailer to Mace's
wrists. He threw himself forward, bent at the  waist,  and  with  a  surge  of
incredible strength yanked the Jedi Master  over  his  head  and  slammed  him
bodily to the dirt.
     The impact replaced  the  stars  in  Mace's  head  with  billowing  black
nebulae; he'd never gotten his breath back properly after landing on  the  akk
dog, and now he couldn't breathe at all. The jungle above faded into  a  black
haze; through the darkness descending inside his skull,  he  barely  caught  a
glimpse of Vastor leaping into the air to drop a body-slam that  would  finish
him. With a gasp, he rolled aside, and Vastor landed hard on the ground beside
him.
     Mace dizzily tried to pull himself up to his hands and knees; Vastor  was
still down, his hands clawing weakly at Mace's flanks.
     Mace pushed him off and made it to his  knees.  Vaster  rolled  onto  his
side, found a tree trunk, and pulled himself up it, leaning on it drunkenly.
     Though Mace couldn't breathe-could barely see through  the  black-and-red
haze inside his head-he could draw upon the Force to  throw  himself  upright,
and he lunged at Vaster, whirling, hands clasped together to deliver every erg
of power at his command into one last  thundering  punch  that  lifted  Vaster
bodily off the ground, flipped him over backward, and dropped him on the  back
of his neck.
     Mace swayed, almost out on his feet. The  jungle  hazed  in  and  out  of
focus. All he could clearly see was the lorpelek climbing to his feet.
     Vaster was smiling.
     Is that the best you have?
     'I'm just-" Mace gasped for breath. His arms came  up  slowly;  each  one
felt like it was made out of collapsium. "Just getting started-"
     One of those open-handed slaps flashed out  of  the  darkness;  the  next
thing of which Mace was aware was a bell-like ringing in  his  ears,  and  the
grip of Vastor's huge hand around his neck, holding  him  up  off  the  jungle
floor.
     Mace's eyelids fluttered open. Vastor's blood-smeared grin was  the  only
thing in the world.
     Vaster growled, How many arms do you see?
     Mace didn't answer.
     He certainly didn't see the one attached to the  hand  that  snuffed  the
world like a blown-out candle.
     In the darkness, a smell of ammonia and rotten meat: predator breath.
     A dry rough tongue the size  of  his  lost  kitbag  licked  him  back  to
consciousness, and Mace opened his eyes.
     The Akk Guards were crowded around him, leaning over, their faces in deep
shadow, haloed by the pulsing light of the glowvines in the  canopy;  one  now
pushed the nose of the akk dog who'd been licking Mace's unconscious  body  so
that the great beast backed up.
     Kar Vaster stepped into the gap. He squatted on his  haunches  at  Mace's
side. His face was lumped up, and blood still trickled from his  split  cheek,
but his grin was fiercer than ever.
     He barked something, and one of the Akk Guards stepped away for  a  brief
moment. Mace heard Nick say, "Hey, cut it out. Hey, ow, huh? Come on, lay  off
the arm, you know I'm good for it-"
     The Akk Guard returned, dragging Nick.
     Vaster growled.
     Nick said, "Hey, why are you telling me-?"
     Vastor's growl sharpened, and Nick flinched  away  from  him.  He  looked
uncertainly up at the Akk Guard who held his arm, back at Vastor, then down at
Mace.
     'He, uh-" Nick swallowed hard. "-he wants me to say  so  everybody  hears
it: You can get up, if you want..."
     Mace's eyes drifted closed. He didn't answer.
     Vastor made a rumbling noise.
     'He says, Come on. You wanted to be the big dog. Get up and fight."  Nick
lowered his voice. "I mean, you can get up, right? If you want  to-I  mean,  I
got odds, it's worth jive hundred creds, I'll split it with you-"
     Mace opened his eyes. "No."
     Vastor's rumble broadened  humorously,  as  though  the  lorpelek  was  a
groundquake telling a joke.
     'Um, he-he wants to know, No, what? That is-y'know, no to the money?"
     'No," Mace said. He couldn't find a place on his body that did not  hurt.
"No more fighting. I've had enough. You win."
     Vastor seized Mace's shoulder in one enormous hand and stood, pulling the
Jedi Master upright without apparent effort. Now his growl  once  more  became
words in Mace's mind.
     Tell them. Tell them who is the big dog here.
     Mace hung his head, careful not to  meet  Vastor's  eye.  "You  are."  He
coughed, and blood bubbled from his smashed mouth. "You're the big dog."
     Nick looked stricken.
     Tell them you were wrong to take my prisoners. Tell them you  were  wrong
to let them go.
     Mace kept his eyes on the ground at his feet. Blood from the shallow akk-
spine gouges in his belly ran down  his  legs.  "I  was  wrong  to  take  your
prisoners. I was wrong to let them go."
     Tell them you are sorry that you challenged me, and you will never do  it
again.
     Mace's only motion was to glance up at the howdah  on  the  back  of  the
ankkox. Now after dark, the curtains were opaque. He couldn't tell if Depa was
even in there.
     He lowered his head once more.
     'I am sorry that I challenged you. I will never challenge you again."
     A twitch of motion in his peripheral vision: Nick  had  let  Mace's  vest
unroll from his hand. Now he held it alongside his leg.  He  gave  it  another
suggestive twitch.
     Mace could feel the lightsaber within it.
     He met Nick's eye. Nick deliberately looked  away,  miming  a  nonchalant
whistle, while he twitched the vest one more time.
     A twist of the Force-no more effort than  Nick  expended  to  wiggle  the
vest-would bring that lightsaber to Mace's hands.
     Mace said slowly, "Kar?"
     Vaster hummed a yes.
     'My weapon is in that vest. May I  have  it?"  He  kept  his  eyes  fixed
resolutely on the,'orpe,'ek's chest. "Please?"
     Vaster released his shoulder with a contemptuous shove,  and  extended  a
hand for the vest. Nick looked at Mace with open shock, as  though  he'd  been
unexpectedly betrayed.
     Mace looked at the ground.
     Vaster took the vest, and pulled Mace's lightsaber  out  of  its  pocket.
This is yours?
     'Yes, Kar," Mace said quietly. "May I have it, please?"
     Vaster gave a sidelong glance at an Akk Guard, and purred something.  The
guard smirked, nodding.
     'Please," Mace repeated humbly. "It's my only weapon.  I  won't  be  much
good to anyone without it."
     You're not much good to anyone with it, Vaster grunted. He held it out to
Mace, but when the Jedi Master extended a hesitant hand  to  take  it,  Vaster
flipped it carelessly away from him. The Akk Guard he'd purred at snatched  it
from the air.
     The guard held it in one hand. The vibroshield on his other arm whined to
life.
     'Hey, Kar, c'mon, lay off, huh?" Nick's face was twisted  in  an  ongoing
wince; it was painful to pity someone previously respected. "You  won,  didn't
you? Isn't that enough? Why do you have to be such a-"
     Vaster interrupted the young Korun with a backhanded  cuff  that  knocked
him to the ground. He never even looked at him; his gaze  was  still  on  Mace
Windu.
     The Jedi Master seemed not even to  notice  Nick  lying  on  the  ground,
cradling his bloodied mouth, cursing continuously into his hand. "Don't," Mace
said brokenly. "Don't. You don't understand-a Jedi's lightsaber-"
     Can be destroyed as easily as a Jedi Master. Vastor flicked  his  fingers
as though brushing off a fly,  but  before  the  Akk  Guard  could  bring  the
lightsaber's handgrip against the edge of his shield-
     'Kar..."
     Through the gauzy opacity of the curtained howdah above, Depa's voice had
an eerie power, and it seemed to come from everywhere at once.
     'To send him out into the jungle without his weapon would be murder, Kar.
He is not the enemy."
     Not your enemy. Perhaps.
     'Please, Kar. Keep it safe for him, and return it to him when he departs.
"
     He is departing now.
     'He cannot travel," Depa said. "Can you not feel it? You hurt  him,  Kar.
Hurt him badly. He needs rest, and medical treatment. Let us take him  to  the
base. He can ride the ankkox with me. Keep  his  lightsaber  yourself.  You've
shown him he cannot face you without it."
     Vastor's inhuman stare searched the blank face of  the  howdah,  but  now
night had fully fallen. Glowvine light shimmered off the curtains, and nothing
could be seen within.
     Finally he gave an irritable shrug and extended a hand. The Akk
     Guard tossed the handgrip back to him, and  Vastor  tucked  it  into  the
waistband of his vine cat leather pants.
     He cast Mace's vest to the ground at the Jedi Master's feet.
     Did it hurt even more, knowing she was watching?
     He no longer sounded mocking; this came in the tone of simple curiosity.
     Slowly, painfully, like an old man protecting arthritic knees, Mace  bent
down to retrieve the vest. He said, "I'm not sure  it  could  have  hurt  much
more."
     You might remember that this all began because you refused to come when I
told you.
     This began, Mace thought, when I was summoned to the  private  office  of
Chancellor Palpatine. But he said nothing.
     Because you refused to do what you were told.
     'Yes," Mace said. "Yes, I remember." He picked up the vest and slipped it
on. The sting of dirt in open wounds announced that the lammas tree's bark had
torn his back.
     If there is a next time, doshalo, it will be your last time.
     'Yes, Kar. I know." He looked at Nick, who was now sitting on the  ground
staring balefully at Vastor. "Come on," Mace said softly. "I'll  need  you  to
help me up onto the ankkox."


     FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU


     Vastor was willing to let  Nick  help  me,  and  treat  my  more  serious
injuries with supplies from a captured medpac. He was willing to  believe  the
battering he'd inflicted on me was nearly crippling.
     It wasn't far from the truth.
     Nick was still simmering as he helped me to my feet, muttering under  his
breath a continuous stream of invective, characterizing Vastor as  a  "lizard-
faced frogswallower," and a "demented scab-chewing turtlesacker" and a variety
of other names that I don't feel comfortable  recording,  even  in  a  private
journal.
     'That's enough," I told him. "I have gone to considerable trouble to keep
us both alive, Nick. I'd prefer we stay that way."
     'Oh, sure. Nice job on that." His voice was bitter, and he didn't want to
meet my eyes.
     I told him I was sorry about his hundred credits, and pointed out to  him
gently that no one had told him to bet on me.
     He turned on me then, instantly furious, hissing  savagely  to  keep  his
voice down, as the Akk Guards and the dogs were  still  milling  about.  "This
isn't about credits! I don't care about  the  credits-"  He  stopped  himself,
blinking, and his familiar smile flickered briefly across his lips. "Shee. Did
I really just say that? Wow. So okay, sure, that was a lie: I care  about  the
creds. I care a lot. But that's not why I'm angry."
     I nodded, and told him I understood: he was angry at me. He felt like I'd
let him down.
     'Not me," he said. "I mean, come on:  Jedi  are  supposed  to  stand  for
something, aren't you? You're supposed stand up for what's  right.  No  matter
what." Angry at me as he may have been, he still swung his head under  one  of
my arms and held it across his shoulders, so he could help me walk.
     It was appreciated. Only as the  adrenaline  and  concussion  shock  were
wearing off did I begin understand what a beating I  had  taken;  later,  with
access to the medpac's scanner, I would discover two cracked  ribs,  a  severe
ankle sprain from the  gripleaf  trailer,  a  moderate  concussion,  and  some
internal bleeding, not to mention the bite wound on my neck and an astonishing
variety of scrapes and bruises.
     As Nick helped me up onto the ankkox, I discovered what had made  him  so
angry with me: more than anything else, it was that I'd declared we  had  been
wrong to free the prisoners.
     'I don't care what you say," he muttered darkly. "I don't care  what  Kar
says. There were kids there. And wounded. I mean: those Balawai, they  weren't
evil. They were just people. Like us."
     'Nearly everyone is."
     'We did the right thing, and you know it."
     It dawned on me then that Nick was proud of himself. Proud of what we had
done. It may  have  been  an  unfamiliar  feeling  for  him:  that  peculiarly
delicious pride that comes from having taken a terrible risk to  do  something
truly admirable. Of overcoming the instinct of self-preservation: of  fighting
our fears and winning.
     It is the pride of discovering  that  one  is  not  merely  a  bundle  of
reflexes and conditioned responses; that instead one is a thinking being,  who
can choose the right over the easy, and justice over safety.  The  pride  Nick
took in this made me proud of him, too-though of course I could not  tell  him
so. It would only have embarrassed him, and made him regret speaking at all.
     I hope I never forget the fierce conviction on his face as he  helped  me
climb the extended leg of the ankkox and clambered up onto its  dorsal  shell.
"Just because Kar beat you like a rented gong doesn't mean he was right.  Just
because he won doesn't mean you were wrong to challenge him. I  can't  believe
you'd ever say those things."
     His answer came from within the curtained darkness of the howdah  at  the
top of the curved shell.
     'If you spend much time around us, Nick, you will learn..." Depa's  voice
was strong and clear and as sane and gentle as it has always been in my heart.
"You will learn that Jedi do not always tell the truth."
     Nick stopped, suddenly scowling as though he found  himself  unexpectedly
deep in thought. "Don't always-hey..." he muttered  suspiciously.  "Hey,  wait
one second here-"
     She pulled back the curtain once more, and pushed open  the  small  swing
gate in the rail. "Come on in. You look like you might want to lie down."
     'I might," I admitted. "This hasn't been my best couple of days."
     She took my hand to steady me as I stepped into the howdah, and she  made
room for me on the chaise. "I have to hand it to you, Mace," she said  with  a
softly ironic smile. "You still take a beating as  well  as  any  man  in  the
galaxy."
     Nick's eyes bulged as though his head might  explode.  "I  knew  it!"  He
shook a fiercely triumphant fist in my face. "I knew it. I knew you could take
him!"
     I told him to keep it down, because Vastor and the Akk Guards were  still
moving through the trees nearby, and I had no idea  how  sharp  Vastor's  ears
might be. I didn't tell him to shut up altogether  because  it  wouldn't  have
done any good.
     'I've got you figured. You hear me? I've got your Jedi butt scanned
     I
     to the twelfth decimal point! I shoulda known you were  gonna  dive  when
you started in on  Kar  like  that-you  were  spinning  him  up  to  make  the
confrontation more personal, like. The more you insulted him, the less he  was
gonna worry about taking anything out on me. And you kept on taunting  him  so
that booting your Jedi can into next week  felt  so  good  that  he  basically
forgave you for letting those Balawai go!"
     I told him he was half wrong.
     'Which half?"
     Depa answered for me. "The part about letting Kar win."
     She knows me so well.
     'You mean he really beat you?" Nick couldn't  seem  to  believe  it.  "He
really, really beat you?"
     'We share a bond in the Force now, Nick. Did it,'ee,' like  I  threw  the
fight?"
     He shook his head. "It felt like you were a smazzo drummer's trap skin."
     'As you said earlier: Vastor is a difficult man to lie to. He would  have
known if I was holding back. Then the beating would have been much worse,  and
he might very well have killed me. What I did  was  pick  a  fight  I  knew  I
couldn't win."
     'Couldn't?"
     'Vastor is... very powerful. Half my age and twice my size. Training  and
experience can compensate only up to a point. And he is naturally ferocious in
a way that no Jedi can duplicate."
     'You're telling me you twisted his nose like that, knowing he  was  gonna
beat you so bad your whole family would bleed?"
     I shrugged."! didn't have to win. All I had to do was fight."
     'Kar's shatterpoint," Depa murmured. "You saw it all along."
     I  nodded.  Nick  wasn't  familiar  with  the  term;  when  I   described
shatterpoint as a critical weakness, he shook his head. "I didn't see anything
weak out there."
     With a sidelong glance at Depa's thoughtful frown, I  quoted  Yoda:  "You
see, but you do not see.
     'Kar's great strength is his instinctive  connection  to  pelekotan.  The
jungle lives in him as much as he lives in it. And like I  keep  telling  you:
even in the jungle, there are rules."
     I explained that a fight between Kar and myself was inevitable: two alpha
males in the same pack. I could smell it on him even during the battle at  the
outpost when we first met. My only hope of a  good  outcome  was  to  make  it
personal and immediate.
     And unarmed.
     If the fight hadn't happened, he and the Akk Guards might very well  have
killed Nick and me both for setting free the prisoners. If he and I  had  gone
at it blade to shield, I would be dead now-even if I'd killed him, the  guards
and the dogs would have torn me to shreds-and Depa, too,  if  she'd  tried  to
save me; we'd only barely survived being attacked by three akks in the  Circus
Horrificus.
     Against a dozen-
     Well. It didn't happen that way. Because I knew what Kar  really  wanted,
in the grip, as he was, of his alpha-male jungle instincts.
     He wanted me to submit.
     And like many other pack hunters, once his rival submitted, his instincts
led him to allow that rival to peacefully sniff  around  the  fringes  of  his
pack-so long as I did not renew my challenge.
     'That's why you gave him your lightsaber? So he wouldn't feel threatened?
"
     I shook my head, and for a moment I was tempted to smile.  "No,  I  would
have let him cut it up."
     'You would?"
     'If it would make him more comfortable with letting me stay? Of course. A
lightsaber can be repaired or rebuilt. But I admit, Depa's idea was  a  stroke
of genius."
     She smiled at me. "I am a bit proud of myself for that."
     Nick again expressed his confusion,  and  I  explained.  "Even  with  the
Force, I can't pick Kar out from the jungle around us. He is so much a part of
it, and it of him, that he is practically invisible.  My  lightsaber,  on  the
other hand-"
     'I get it!" Nick breathed. "As long as he carries it-"
     'Exactly." I could feel it even now: I knew without thinking its  precise
position relative to my own. "It is a bell collar that Depa managed to  buckle
onto a singularly ferocious vine cat."
     'Wow. I mean, wow. Y'know, everybody hears about how scary  Jedi  are-but
those stories aren't the half of it," he said. "Your real  powers  don't  have
anything to do with lightsabers or picking up things with your minds..."  Nick
shook his head  uncomprehendingly.  "It's  not  natural-not  just  taking  the
beating, but bowing down like that... and being able to  come  up  with  stuff
like giving Kar the lightsaber-"
     'It requires a certain detachment of mind. When  your  emotions  are  not
involved, answers are often obvious."
     'It's still not natural. Can I just say, here, how much you two creep  me
out?"
     'When I was Mace's student," Depa mused, "he would often remind  me  that
nothing about being a Jedi is natural."
     'I thought you guys were all about going with the  flow  and  using  your
instincts and stuff..."
     'The difference," I said,  "lies  in  the  instincts  themselves.  It  is
possible for an untrained Force-user to wield as much power as the greatest of
Jedi-look at Kar. But untrained, the instincts he  falls  back  on  are  those
granted him by nature. It is another of the central paradoxes of the Jedi: the
'instincts' we use are not  instinctive  at  all.  They  are  the  product  of
training so intense that they replace our natural ones. That's why  Jedi  must
begin at such an early age. To replace our natural  instincts-ter-ritoriality,
selfishness, anger, fear, and the like-with the Jedi 'instincts'  of  service,
serenity, selflessness, and compassion. The oldest  child  ever  accepted  for
training was nine-and there was much debate  over  that.  A  debate  that  has
continued, I might add, for more than ten years.
     'Being a Jedi is a discipline imposed upon nature, just  as  civilization
is, at its root, a discipline imposed upon the natural  impulses  of  sentient
beings.
     'Because peace is an unnatural state.
     'Peace is a product of civilization. The myth of the peaceful  savage  is
precisely that: a myth.  Without  civilization,  all  existence  is  only  the
jungle. Go to your peaceful savage and burn his crops, or slaughter his herds,
or kick him off his hunting grounds. You'll  find  that  he  will  not  remain
peaceful for long. Isn't that exactly what happened here on Haruun Kal?
     'Jedi do not fight for peace. That's only a slogan, and is as  misleading
as slogans always are. Jedi fight for civilization, because only  civilization
creates peace. We fight for justice because justice is the fundamental bedrock
of civilization: an unjust civilization is built upon sand. It does  not  long
survive a storm.
     'Kar's power  comes  from  natural  instinct-but  he  is  also  ruled  by
instinct, in a way no Jedi ever is. A single Jedi who succumbs to his  natural
drives for power, for respect, for success or revenge, could do damage that is
literally unimaginable."
     'Mace," Depa interrupted me softly, "are we still talking about  Kar?  Or
is this about Dooku?"
     Or, I wondered silently, was it about her?...
     I sighed and lowered my head, suddenly aware of how exhausted I was.  But
still I finished the thought, less for Nick's benefit than for Depa's.
     And my own.
     'Our only hope, against  beings  whose  instincts  control  them,  is  to
absolutely and utterly control our own."
     -


     JEDI OF THE FUTURE



     Light in the jungle.
     Korun  bedrolls  scattered  in  clumps.  Low  voices  blending  into  the
background mutter of the jungle. Smells of hotpack ration  squares  and  smoke
from homemade cigarras of green rashallo leaves.
     Mace sat on a borrowed bedroll a few meters from where Depa's wallet tent
had been pitched in an abandoned ruskakk nest under a tangled arch of  thyssel
bushes. While Nick treated his  injuries,  he  had  been  watching  her  vague
silhouette cast on the tent wall by the light of a captured glow rod.
     When the light winked out, it was as though she'd never even been there.
     The muddy pastel pulse of  glowvine  light  had  Nick  squinting  at  the
medpac's scanner. "Looks like we took care  of  your  internal  bleeding,"  he
said. "One more shot of anti-inflammatory, to keep the concussion swelling  in
your brain under control..."
     Mace leaned his head to one side as Nick pressed the spray  hypo  against
his carotid artery. The Jedi Master stared sightlessly off through the  night;
he didn't even feel the brief sting of the injection.
     He was tracking his lightsaber.
     'He's not settling," Mace said.
     IL
     'Who's not what?"
     'Vastor. He's pacing. Circling. Like a rancor staked out in the desert."
     'You surprised?"
     'I shouldn't be. He probably senses that even though the fight was  real,
my submission was fake. He's just not sure what to do about it."
     Nick clipped the spray hypo back into its receptacle. "Unless  your  idea
of fun is quality time with me and a medpac, I'd suggest you stay out  of  his
way." He tapped the  bacta  patch  that  covered  the  bite  wound  on  Mace's
trapezius. "You wouldn't believe how many different kinds of lethal bacteria I
found in there. I do not want to know what he's been eating."
     'I am less concerned with what he's eating," Mace said, "than with what's
eating him."
     'One easy guess." Nick nodded toward Depa's tent. "How is she?"
     Mace shrugged. "As you saw."
     'No-I mean, that whole dark side crap. Like what we  were  talking  about
before I left you at the outpost."
     'I... can't say." Mace's habitual frown deepened. "I would  like  to  say
she's fine. But what I would like has little to do with what is. She  seems...
unstable."
     'Well, y'know, a few months in the war could do that to anybody."
     'That's what I'm afraid of."



     FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU




     I am not sure what time it is. After midnight, I suspect, with some hours
to go before dawn. I cannot be more accurate, as  this  datapad's  chronometer
function has suffered the same fate as its concealed transmitter. There  is  a
time of night here when even the glowvines mute their light, and the  prowling
predators go quiet, and sleep seems the only activity that has meaning.
     Yet here I am awake, though I have slept little in the past three days.
     It was Depa's scream that woke me.
     A raw shriek of impossible anguish, it yanked me from  nightmares  of  my
own. It was not fear, that scream, but suffering so  profound  that  it  could
have no other expression.
     Her scream woke her as well, and her first thought was to open  her  tent
and exhaustedly reassure us that it had been only a dream. That  seems  always
to be her first thought: to reassure the Korunnai, and me. From  this  I  take
considerable comfort.
     It's the third time this has happened so far tonight.
     And yet-injured as I am, and unused to sleeping on a Korun bedroll on the
open ground-I find I have slept as well as I have yet managed on this planet.
     Depa's screams are a mercy.
     Because my own nightmares don't wake me.
     My nightmares suck me down, drowning me in a blind gluey chaos of anxiety
and pain; they are more than simple anxiety dreams of wounds or  suffering  or
the varieties of gruesome maiming, dismemberment, and death available  in  the
jungle.
     In my dreams here, I have seen the destruction of the Jedi.The  death  of
the Republic. I have seen  the  Temple  in  ruins,  the  Senate  smashed,  and
Coruscant itself shattered  by  orbital  bombardment  from  immense  ships  of
impossible design. I have seen Coruscant, the seat of galactic culture, become
a jungle far more hostile and alien than any on Haruun Kal.
     I have seen the end of civilization.
     Depa's screams bring me back to the jungle and the night.
     A week ago, I could not have imagined that to  wake  up  in  this  jungle
would be a relief.



     FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU



     Tomorrow we leave this place.
     This is what I've been telling myself all day long,  riding  cross-legged
on the ankkox's shell, talking with Depa. I should say: listening to her,  for
she seems to hear me only when it suits her. All day, I left the shell only to
stretch my legs or relieve myself... and sometimes as I  would  climb  up  the
shell to my spot, she'd be talking already, in that same low blurry murmur she
used to speak with me-as though our conversation had  been  going  on  in  her
head, and my arrival was only a detail.
     When the gunships came and rained fire upon us, or blasted away  randomly
with their cannons, the guerrillas who were lucky enough to be near the ankkox
often ducked beneath it for shelter, but Depa never did, so neither did I. She
lay on her chaise within the howdah, and I sometimes leaned  my  back  against
its polished rail, so that her soft voice drifted in over my shoulder.
     We covered many kilometers today. The ground is  rising;  as  the  jungle
thins we can move much more swiftly. It is not for nothing that a  Korun  does
not speak of distance in kilometers, but in travel time.
     The same thinning of the jungle that increases our speed also  leaves  us
more exposed to the gunships that seem now to be patrolling  in  an  organized
search pattern.
     I have much to tell of this day that has passed, and yet  it's  difficult
for me to begin. I can only think of tomorrow, of meeting  Nick,  and  finally
calling down the Halleck to carry us away.
     I burn for it.
     I have discovered that I hate this place.
     Not very Jedi of me, but I cannot deny it.  I  hate  the  damp,  and  the
smell, and the  heat,  and  the  sweat  that  trickles  constantly  around  my
eyebrows, trails down my cheeks, and drips from the point of my chin.  I  hate
the stupid bovine complacency of the grassers, and the  feral  snarls  of  the
half-wild akk dogs. I hate the gripleaves, and the  brass-vines,  the  portaak
trees and thyssel bushes.
     I hate the darkness under the trees.
     I hate the war.
     I hate what it's done to these people. To Depa.
     I hate what it's doing to me.
     The Halleck will be cool. It will be clean. The food will have no mold or
rot or insect eggs.
     I know already what I will do first, aboard ship. Before I even visit the
bridge to salute the captain.
     I will take a shower.
     The last time I was clean was on the shuttle, in orbit. Now I  wonder  if
I'll ever be clean again.
     When I stepped off the shuttle at the Pelek  Baw  spaceport,  I  remember
looking up at the white peak of Grandfather's Shoulder, and  thinking  that  I
had spent far too much time on Coruscant.
     What a fool I was.
     As Depa described me: Blind, ignorant, arrogant fool.
     I was afraid to learn how bad things might be here, and the worst  of  my
fears didn't even approach the truth.
     I can't-
     I feel my lightsaber coming this way. I will continue later.



     FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU



     Kar was ostensibly stopping at Depa's tent to  discuss  tomorrow's  march
before she settles in for the night; I suspect that his true aim was to  check
on me.
     I hope he is satisfied by what he found.
     This morning, I asked Depa why  she  hadn't  left  when  the  Separatists
pulled back to Gevarno and Opari. Why she clearly would stay even now, were  I
not extorting her cooperation.
     'There is fighting to be done. Can a  Jedi  walk  away?"  Her  voice  was
muffled, coming through the curtains.  She  did  not  invite  me  inside  this
morning, and I did not ask why.
     I'm afraid that she was in a state that neither of us wanted me to see.
     'To fight on after the battle is done-Depa, that is  not  Jedi,"  I  told
her. "That's the dark."
     'War is not about light or dark. It is about winning. Or dying."
     'But here you've already won." I thought back to the words of my  strange
waking dream. Her words, or the Force's, I did not know.
     'Perhaps I have. But look around you: is what you see a victorious  army?
Or are they ragged fugitives, spending the last of their strength  to  stay  a
step ahead of the gallows?"
     I have  enormous  sympathy  for  them:  for  their  suffering  and  their
desperate struggle. It is never far from my thoughts that only  chance-a  whim
of Jedi anthropologists and the choice of some elders of ghosh Windu-separates
their fate from my own.
     I could too easily have grown to become Kar Vaster myself.
     But I said none of this to Depa; my purpose here was not to muse upon the
twists in the endless river that is the Force.
     'I understand their war," I told her. "It's very clear  to  me  why  they
fight. My question is: Why are you still fighting?"
     'Can't you feel it?"
     And when she spoke, I could: in the Force, a relentless pulse of fear and
hatred, like what I had felt from Nick and Chalk  and  Besh  and.Lesh  in  the
groundcar, but here amplified as though the jungle  had  become  a  planetwide
resonance chamber. It was hate that kept the Korunnai fighting on,  as  though
this whole people shared a single dream: that all Balawai might have a  single
skull, bent for a Korun mace...
     She said: "Yes: our battle is won. Theirs goes on. It will never be over,
not while one of them still lives. The Balawai will never stop coming. We used
these people for our own purposes-and we got what  we  wanted.  Should  I  now
throw them away? Abandon them to genocide, because they are no longer  useful?
Is that what the Council orders me to do?"
     'You prefer to stay and fight a war that is not yours?"
     Her voice gathered heat. "They need me, Mace. I am their only hope."
     That heat quickly faded, though, and  she  went  back  to  her  exhausted
mumble. "I've done... things. Questionable things. I know. But I have  seen...
Mace, you cannot imagine what I have seen. As bad as it is-as bad as  I  am...
Search the Force. You can feel how much worse everything could  be.  How  much
worse it will be." With this, I could not argue.
     'Look around you." Her  mumble  took  on  a  bitter  edge.  "Think  about
everything you've seen. This is a little war, Mace. A  little  sputtering  on-
again, off-again series of inconclusive skirmishes. Until the Republic and the
Confederacy mixed into it, it was practically a sporting event.  But  look  at
what it's done to these people. Imagine what war will do to those who've never
known it. Imagine infantry battles in the fields of
     Alderaan. DOKAWs striking spacescrapers on Coruscant.  Imagine  what  the
galaxy will be if the Clone War turns serious."
     I told her it was already serious, and she laughed at  me.  "You  haven't
seen serious yet."
     I told her I was looking at it.
     And I think, now, of the clone troopers on the  Halleck,  and  how  their
clean crisp unquestioning bravery and discipline under fire  is  as  far  from
these ragged murderers as it is  possible  to  be  for  members  of  the  same
species... and I remember that the Grand Army  of  the  Republic  numbers  1.2
million clone troopers-just enough to station a single trooper-one lone man-on
each planet of the Republic, and have a handful of thousands left over.
     If this Clone War escalates the way Depa seems to think it will, it  will
be fought not by clones and Jedi and battle droids, but  by  ordinary  people.
Ordinary people who will face one stark choice: to  die,  or  to  become  like
these Korunnai. Ordinary people who will have to leave forever the  Galaxy  of
Peace.
     I can only hope that war is easier on those who cannot touch the Force.
     Though I suspect the truth is exactly opposite.
     There were hours, too, when we did not speak. I sat  beside  the  how-dah
while she dozed in the afternoon heat, drowsy myself with the ankkox's rocking
gait and the unchanging flow of  the  trees  and  vines  and  flowers,  and  I
listened to her dream-mumbles, and  was  shocked,  sometimes,  by  her  sudden
nightmare shrieks, or the agonized moans that her migraines  might  pull  from
her lips.
     She seems to suffer from an  intermittent  fever.  Sometimes  her  speech
becomes a disjointed ramble through imaginary conversations  that  shift  from
subject to subject with hallucinatory randomness. Sometimes her pronouncements
have an eerie sibylline quality, as though she prophesied a future that had no
past. I've occasionally tried to record these on this datapad, but somehow her
voice never comes through.
     As though our talks are my own hallucination.
     And if so-
     Does it matter?
     Even a lie of the Force is more true than any reality we can comprehend.



     FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU



     Much of the day we spent talking about Kar Vaster.  Depa  has  spared  me
many of the less savory details, but she has told me enough.
     More than enough.
     For example: when he calls me doshalo, it's not just  an  expression.  If
what he has told Depa is the truth, Kar Vaster and  I  are  the  last  of  the
Windu.
     The ghosh into which I was born-and with which I lived for  those  months
in my teens, while I returned to learn some  of  the  Korun  Force  skills-has
apparently been destroyed piecemeal over the past thirty  years.  Not  in  any
great massacre, or climactic last stand, but by the simple, brutal mathematics
of attrition: my ghosh is just another statistical  casualty  of  a  simmering
guerrilla war against an  enemy  more  numerous,  better  armed,  and  equally
ruthless.
     Depa told me this hesitantly, as though it were horrible news  that  must
be broken gently. And perhaps it is. I cannot  say.  She  seems  to  think  it
should matter a great deal to me. And perhaps it should.
     But I am more thoroughly Jedi than I am Korun.
     When I think of my doshallai  dead  and  scattered,  Windu  heritage  and
traditions perishing in blood and darkness, I feel only abstract sadness.
     Any tale of pointless suffering and loss is sad, to me.
     I would change them all if I could. Not just my own.
     I would certainly change Kar's.
     It seems that as a young man, Kar Vaster was  fairly  ordinary:  more  in
touch with pelekotan than most, but not in any other way unsual.  It  was  the
Summertime War that changed him, as it has changed so much on this world.
     When he was fourteen,  he  saw  his  whole  family  massacred  by  jungle
prospectors: one of the casual atrocities that characterize this war.
     I do not know how it is that he alone escaped; the stories Depa has heard
from various Korunnai are contradictory.  Kar  himself,  it  seems,  will  not
discuss it.
     What we do know is that  after  witnessing  the  murders  of  his  entire
family, he was left alone in the jungle: without  weapons,  without  grassers,
without akks or people, food or supplies of any kind. And that he lived in the
jungle-alone-for more than a standard year.
     This is what he meant when he said he had survived tan pel'trokal.
     The term has an irony that only now do I begin to appreciate.
     The tan pel'trokal is a penalty  devised  by  Korun  culture,  to  punish
crimes deserving death. Knowing that human judgment is fallible, the  Korunnai
leave the final disposition  of  the  sentence  to  the  jungle  itself;  they
consider it a mercy.
     I would say: it is a mercy they grant themselves. Thus can they take life
without the shame of bloodied hands.
     In Kar's case, he faced his tan pel'trokal for the crime of being  Korun.
He was as innocent-and as guilty-as  the  Balawai  children  to  whom  he  was
planning to do the same. Their crimes were identical: they were born into  the
wrong family.
     He was, at the time, perhaps a year older than Keela.
     But there was no Jedi nearby to save him, and so he had to save himself.
     I believe that his ability to form human speech was part of the price  he
paid for his survival. All Jedi know that power must be paid  for;  the  Force
maintains a balance that cannot be defied. Pelekotan traded him power for  his
humanity.
     I sometimes wonder if the Force does the same for Jedi.
     He and his Akk Guards clearly have much in common with Jedi: they seem to
be our reflections in a dark mirror. They  rely  on  instinct;  Jedi  rely  on
training. They use anger and aggression as sources  of  power;  our  power  is
based upon serenity and defense. Even the weapon he and his Akk  Guards  carry
is a twisted mirror image of ours.
     I use my sword as a shield. They use their shields as swords.
     Depa tells me that these "vibroshields" are Kar's own design.  Vibro-axes
are common equipment among jungle prospectors, used for harvesting lumber  and
clearing paths through stands too  thick  for  their  steamcrawlers  to  crush
through; since the sonic generators that power vibro-axes  are  fully  sealed,
they are remarkably resistant to the metal-eating molds and fungi.
     And the metal itself... well, that's an interesting story of its own.  It
seems to be an alloy that the fungi don't attack. It is  extremely  hard,  and
never loses its edge. Nor does it rust, or even tarnish.
     It also seems to be a superconductor.
     This is why my blade could not cut it: the entire shield  is  always  the
same temperature throughout. Even the energy  of  a  lightsaber  is  instantly
conducted away. Hold a blade against it long enough and the whole  thing  will
melt, but it cannot be cut. Not by an energy blade.
     File the data.
     When Kar accepts a man into his  Akk  Guards,  the  man  builds  his  own
weapons, not unlike the tradition in the spirit of which  Jedi  construct  our
lightsabers.
     It strikes me now that Kar may have hit upon this idea  from  stories  of
Jedi training I shared with my long-lost friends in ghosh  Windu,  thirty-five
years and more ago: Korunnai have a living oral  tradition,  and  stories  are
passed through families as treasured possessions.
     I have not shared this speculation with Depa.
     And Depa swears that she did not teach Kar and his guards the Jedi  skill
of interception; she says Kar knew this already when she  first  met  him.  If
what she says is true, he must have taught himself-and  he  probably  got  the
idea from those same stories that  I,  in  my  thoughtless  youth,  innocently
shared with my innocent friends.
     And so: in some odd, circuitous way, Kar Vaster may be my fault.
     The source of this metal is a mystery; though Kar never speaks of  it  to
anyone, I believe I know what it is.
     Starship armor.
     Thousands of years ago-before the Sith War-when shield generators were so
massive that  only  the  largest  capital  ships  could  carry  them,  smaller
starships were armored with a  mirrorlike  superconducting  alloy,  which  was
sufficient to resist the low-fire-rate laser cannons of the day.
     I think Kar, somewhere out in the jungle of the Korunnai Highland,
     sometime during his  yearlong  tan  pel'trokal,  had  stumbled  upon  the
ancient Jedi starship whose crash stranded on this planet his  ancestors,  and
my own.
     It was earlier this evening that I learned the real truth of Kar  Vastor.
Not only who he is, and why he is-
     But what he means.
     Somewhere along our line of march Kar had located a cave that  he  deemed
adequate to shelter a fire from gunship or satellite detection, and that night
he set about curing Besh's and Chalk's fever wasp infestation. Besh and  Chalk
had remained in thanatizine suspension, tied to a  grasser's  travois  like  a
bundle of cargo. The crude hacking Terrel had done to  them  had  been  mostly
repaired with tissue binders from a captured  medpac,  though  of  course  the
wounds  could  not  heal;  the  body's  healing  processes  are  suspended  by
thanatizine as well.
     Depa was in attendance, as was I, as well as a select few others. A  pair
of the Akk Guards had carried her, chaise and all, in from her howdah. She lay
back with one slim arm  across  her  eyes;  she  was  having  another  of  her
headaches, and the light from the fire of tyruun, the local  wood  that  burns
white-hot, was causing her pain. I suspect she might have  preferred  to  skip
the whole business.
     Even so, when Kar laid the still forms of Besh and Chalk facedown on  the
mossy floor of the cave and tore open the backs of their tunics, Depa  stirred
and sat forward. Though she continued to shade her eyes, firelight  gave  them
glitters of silver and red. She watched raptly, her small white teeth fixed in
her lower lip, worrying the corner of her mouth near the burn scar.
     Kar simply squatted beside the two, humming tunelessly under his  breath,
while a Korun I did not recognize injected them with  the  antidote.  Vastor's
humming deepened, and found a pulsing rhythm like the slow  beat  of  a  human
heart. He extended his hands, and closed his eyes, and  hummed,  and  I  could
feel motion in the Force, a swirl of power very unlike any I've  felt  from  a
Jedi healer-or anyone else, for that matter.
     A streak of red painted itself along their spines,  and  a  moment  later
this red suddenly blossomed into the glistening wetness of fresh blood  oozing
through their skin-and details, I suppose, are unnecessary. Suffice it to  say
that Kar had somehow used the Force-used pelekotan-to persuade the fever  wasp
larvae that they were in the wrong place  to  hatch:  using  the  same  animal
tropism that draws them from the site of the wasp sting to cluster  along  the
victim's central nervous system, Kar induced them to migrate-
     Out of Besh and Chalk entirely.
     And such was his power that the entire wriggling mass  of  them-nearly  a
kilo all told-squirmed its way straight  into  the  tyruun  blaze,  where  the
larvae popped while they roasted with a stench like burning hair.
     In the midst of this extraordinary display, Depa leaned close to  me  and
whispered, "Don't you ever wonder if we might be wrong?"
     I didn't understand what she was talking about, and she waved  her  fine-
boned hand vaguely toward Vastor. "Such power-and such control-and never a day
of training. Because what he does is natural: as natural as the jungle itself.
We Jedi train our entire lives: to control our natural emotions,  to  overcome
our natural desires. We give up so much for our power.  And  what  Jedi  could
have done this?"
     I could not answer; Vastor has power on the  scale  of  Master  Yoda,  or
young Anakin Skywalker. And I had no  desire  to  debate  with  Depa  on  Jedi
tradition, and the necessary distinction between dark and light.
     So I tried to change the subject.
     I told her that Nick had shared with me the truth of the  faked  massacre
and her message on the data wafer, and I reminded her that she  had  yesterday
alluded to having some plan for me: something she wanted to teach  me,  or  to
show me. So I asked her.
     I asked what she had hoped to accomplish by drawing me here.
     I asked what are her victory conditions.
     She said that she wanted to tell me  something.  That's  all.  It  was  a
message she could have sent on a subspace squawk: a line or two, no more.  But
I had to be in the war-see the war, eat and drink, breathe and smell the  war-
or I wouldn't have believed it.
     She told me: "The Jedi will lose."
     There in the cave, as fever wasp  larvae  snapped  and  crackled  in  the
tyruun flames, I countered with numbers: there are still  ten  times  as  many
Loyalist systems as Separatist, the Republic has a titanic manufacturing base,
and huge advantages in resources... the beginnings of a whole list of  reasons
the Republic will inevitably win.
     'Oh, I know," was her response. "The Republic may very well win. But  the
Jedi will lose."
     I said I did not understand, but I now believe  that  is  not  true.  The
truth, I think, is what the Force said to me in the image of Depa back at  the
outpost: that I already understand all there is to understand.
     I just don't want to believe it.
     She said that I had foreshadowed the defeat  of  the  Jedi  myself.  "The
reason you freed the Balawai, Mace," she said, "is the same  reason  that  the
Jedi will be destroyed."
     War is a horror, she said. Her words:  "A  horror.  But  what  you  don't
understand is that it must be a horror. That's how wars are won: by inflicting
such terrible suffering upon the enemy that they can no longer bear to  fight.
You cannot treat war like law enforcement, Mace. You can't  fight  to  protect
the innocent-because no one is innocent."
     She said something similar  to  what  Nick  had  said  about  the  jungle
prospectors: that there are no civilians.
     'The innocent citizens of the  Confederacy  are  the  ones  who  make  it
possible for their leaders to wage war on us: they build the ships, they  grow
the food, mine the metals, purify the water. And only they can stop  the  war:
only their suffering will bring it to a close."
     'But you can't expect Jedi to stand by while ordinary people are hurt and
killed-" I began.
     'Exactly. That is why we cannot win: to win this war, we must  no  longer
be Jedi." She speaks of this in the future tense, though I suspect that in her
heart-in her conscience-the Jedi are dead already. "Like dropping a bomb  into
the arena on Ceonosis: we can save the Republic, Mace. We can.  But  the  cost
will be our principles. In the end, isn't that what Jedi are for? We sacrifice
everything for the Republic: our families, our homeworlds,  our  wealth,  even
our lives. Now the Republic needs us to sacrifice our consciences as well. Can
we refuse? Are Jedi traditions more important than the lives of billions?"
     She told me how she and Kar Vastor had managed to drive  the  Separatists
off this world.
     The CIS had been using the Pelek Baw spaceport as a base for the  repair,
refit, and resupply of the droid starfighters they used to picket  the  Al'Har
system. These operations required large numbers  of  civilian  employees.  Her
strategy  was  simple:  she  proved  to  these  civilian  employees  that  the
Separatist military and the Balawai militia together were powerless to protect
them.
     There was no pitched battle. Nothing heroic or colorful. Just an unending
series of gruesome killings. One or two at a time. At first,  the  Separatists
had flooded Pelek Baw with their forces-but battle droids are as vulnerable to
the metal-eating fungi as are simple blasters, and soldiers of flesh and blood
die just as easily as civilians. The essence of guerrilla  warfare:  the  real
target is not the enemy's emplacements, or even their lives.
     The target is the enemy's will to fight.
     Wars are won not by killing enemies, but by terrorizing them  until  they
give up and go home.
     'That's why I brought you to Haruun Kal," she said. "I wanted to show you
what winning soldiers will look like." She pointed past the fire. "That is the
Jedi of the future, Mace. Right there."
     She was pointing at Kar Vastor.
     Which is why at this black hour, long  after  midnight  and  long  before
dawn, as the glowvines weaken and predators go  quiet,  when  only  sleep  has
meaning, I lie upon my bedroll and stare at the black leaves above, and  think
of tomorrow.
     Tomorrow we leave this place.
     Back to worlds where showers are just  clean  water,  instead  of  pro-bi
mist. Back to worlds where we sleep indoors, on bedrolls, with clean bleached-
fiber sheets.
     Back to worlds that still lie, however temporarily, within the Galaxy  of
Peace.



     FINAL ENTRY


    The air above the Lorshan Pass was so clear that the sky-colored peak Mace
could barely discern in  the  distant  south  might  have  been  Grandfather's
Shoulder itself. There was a pall of brown haze down in that direction that he
suspected was the smog over Pelek Baw. In the  nearer  distance,  tiny  silver
flecks of gunships patrolled the jungle  canopy  below  the  pass.  A  lot  of
gunships: Mace had counted at least six flights,  possibly  as  many  as  ten,
weaving among the hills.
     The occasional silent flash of cannonfire, or curling  black  smoke  from
flame projectors, he actually found comforting: it meant the  militia  thought
the guerrillas were still down among the trees.
     He sat cross-legged on the shadowed dirt of the cave mouth's  floor,  his
datapad slung on his shoulder. Only two meters away, brilliant  late-afternoon
sunlight slanted across the cliffside meadow: a grassy sward, relatively  flat
for a few tens of meters before it curled  over  the  lip  of  the  cliff  and
dropped half a klick to the pass below.
     Easily large enough for a Republic Sienar Systems Jadfhu-clzss lander.
     Mace determinedly avoided staring up into the sky.  It  would  get  there
when it got there.
     Only minutes to go, now.
     He found himself tallying the list of injuries Haruun Kal  had  inflicted
upon him, from the stun-blast bruises through flame  burns,  cracked  ribs,  a
concussion, and a human bite wound. Not to mention  innumerable  insect  bites
and stings, some kind of rash on his right thigh, and  blistering  around  his
toes that was probably a persistent fungal infection...
     And those were only the physical injuries. They would heal.
     The nonphysical injuries-to his confidence,  his  principles,  his  moral
certainties... to his heart-
     Those couldn't be treated with spray bandages and a bacta patch.
     Behind him, Nick's pacing had scuffed a path through the  thin  layer  of
dirt to the stone of the cave floor. He picked up  his  rifle  from  where  it
leaned against the wall, checked the action for the dozenth time, and  set  it
back down again. He did the same with the slug pistol holstered at his  thigh,
then looked around for something else to do. Not  finding  anything,  he  went
back to pacing. "How much longer?"
     'Not long."
     'That's what you said the last three times I asked."
     'I suppose it depends on what you mean by long."
     'You sure she's coming?"
     'Yes," Mace lied.
     'What if they get here before she does? I mean, we're not gonna have time
to lag  around  waiting  for  her-not  with  gunships  and  who-knows-what-all
tracking the lander through the atmosphere. If she's not here-"
     'We'll worry about that if it happens."
     'Yeah." Nick started pacing from the back  to  the  front  of  the  cave,
instead of side to side. "Yeah."
     'Nick."
     'Yeah?"
     'Settle down."
     The young Korun stopped, winced an apology at Mace, adjusted  his  tunic,
and ran his thumbs around the drawstring waistband of his pants as though they
were chafing him. "I don't like waiting."
     'I've noticed."
     Nick squatted alongside the Jedi Master and nodded at the data-pad.  "Got
any games on that thing? Shee, I'd even play dejarik. And I hate dejarik."
     Mace shook his head. "It's my journal."
     'I've seen you talking into it. Like a diary?"
     'Something like that. It's a personal log of  my  experiences  on  Haruun
Kal. For the Temple Archives."
     'Wow. Am I'm there?"
     'Yes. And Chalk, and Besh,  and  Lesh.  Depa  and  Kar  Vaster,  and  the
children from the outpost-"
     'Wow," Nick repeated. "I mean, wow. That's really cool. Do  all  Jedi  do
that?"
     Mace stared out over the rugged terrain below the pass.  "I  don't  think
Depa has." He sighed, and once more stopped himself  from  checking  the  sky.
"Why do you ask?"
     'It's just-well, it's weird, y'know? Thinking about it. I'm gonna  be  in
the Jedi Archives..."
     'Yes."
     'Twenty-five thousand years of records. It's like-like I'll  be  part  of
the history of the whole galaxy!"
     'You would be, regardless."
     'Oh, yeah, sure, I know: everybody is. But not everybody's  in  the  Jedi
Archives, are they? I mean, my name'll  be  there  forever.  It's  like  being
immortal..."
     Mace thought of Lesh, and of Phloremirlla Tenk. Of Terrel and Rankin.  Of
corpses burned to namelessness, left on the ground at the outpost.
     'It is," he said slowly, "as close to immortality as any of us will  ever
come."
     'Could I listen to some?" Nick tried an encouraging nod.  "Not  like  I'm
nosy or anything. But it'd pass the time-"
     'Are you certain you want to know what I think of you?"
     'Sure I'm-why? Is it bad?" he asked with  an  anticipatory  wince.  "It's
really bad, isn't it."
     'I am teasing you, Nick. I can't play it for  you.  It's  encrypted,  and
only the archive masters at the Temple have the code key."
     'What, you can't even listen to it yourself?"
     Mace  hefted  the  datapad  in  his  hand;  it  seemed  such   a   small,
insubstantial thing, to carry so much doubt and pain.
     'Not only does encryption keep its contents secure, it protects  me  from
the temptation to go back and edit entries to make myself look better."
     'You'd do that?"
     'The opportunity has not presented itself. If I had the chance... I can't
really say. I hope that I would resist. But Jedi or not, I am still human." He
shrugged. "I should make a last entry, preparatory to my formal report to  the
Council on our return to Coruscant."
     'Can I listen?"
     'I suppose you can. I have nothing to say that you don't already know."



     FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU [FINAL HARUUN KAL ENTRY]



     Major Rostu and I wait in a cave at the Korun base in the  Lorshan  Pass;
Depa-
     [Male voice identified as NICK ROSTU, major (bvt), GAR]:  "Hey,  is  that
on? So they can, like, hear me?"
     Yes. It's-
     [Rostu]: "Wow. So some weird alien Jedi a thousand  years  from  now  can
pull this out and it'll be like I'm saying Hi to him  from  a  thousand  years
ago, huh? Hi, you creepy Jedi monkeyhunker, whoever you-"
     Major.
     [Rostu]: "Yeah, I know: Shut up, Nick."
     [sound of a heavy sigh]
     Depa is to meet us here.
     She has some strategem to get Kar Vaster and his Akk  Guards  far  enough
away for us all to make a clean extraction; she did not offer details,  and  I
did not ask.
     I was afraid to hear what she might have told me.
     The signal was sent early this morning,  using  the  same  technique  her
sporadic reports had. Instead of a straight subspace transmission-which  would
be intercepted by the militia's satellites and  allow  them  to  pinpoint  our
location-she broadcast the coded extraction call on  a  normal  comm  channel,
using a tight beam that they bounced to the HoloNet satellite off one  of  the
mountains within our line of sight; the  comm  signal  also  contains  a  Jedi
priority override code that hijacks part of the local  HoloNet  capacity,  and
uses that to send the actual extraction code to the Haileck. It is very  safe,
though there is always data loss from beam scatter.
     I heard the acknowledgment myself, in the base's comm station.
     The Haileck is on its way.
     We arrived at this base about a standard hour after sunrise. The  Haileck
is probably insystem by now. The base itself is... not what I was expecting.
     It's less a military base than an underground refugee camp.
     The complex is enormous, a randomly dug hive that  honeycombs  the  whole
north wall of the pass; a number of access tunnels extend well  downslope,  to
concealed caves deep in the jungle. Some of the caverns are natural:  volcanic
bubbles and water channels eroded by drainage from the snowcapped peaks above.
The inhabited caverns have been artificially  enlarged  and  smoothed.  Though
there is no mining industry on Haruun Kal, and thus no excavation equipment to
be had, a vibro-ax cuts stone almost as easily as wood; many  of  the  smaller
chambers have pallet beds, tables, and benches of stone  cut  and  dressed  by
such blades.
     Which would make it relatively comfortable, were it not so crowded.
     Thousands of Korunnai cram these caverns and tunnels and caves, and  more
trickle in every day.  These  are  the  noncombatants:  the  spouses  and  the
parents, the sick and the wounded. And the children.
     The global lack of mining equipment means that ventilation is necessarily
rudimentary, and  sanitation  virtually  nonexistent.  Pneumonia  is  rampant;
antibiotics are the first thing to run out in the captured med-pacs, and there
is nowhere in the caverns one can go and not  hear  people  wheezing  as  they
struggle to pull their next breath into wet, clogged lungs.  Dysentery  claims
lives among the elderly and the wounded, and with sanitation basically at  the
level of buckets, it will only get worse.
     The largest caverns have  been  given  over  to  the  grassers.  All  the
arriving Korunnai bring whatever grassers survive the trip; even  in  wartime,
the Fourth Pillar holds them in its grip.  These  grassers  spend  their  days
crowded together with no food and little room to move; they  are  all  sickly,
and restive. There have been fights between members of different herds, and  I
am told several die each day: victims of wounds from fighting,  or  infectious
disease from the close quarters. Some, it seems, simply surrender  their  will
to live; they lie down and refuse to get up, and eventually starve.
     The Korunnai tend them as best they can; improvised fences of  piled  cut
rock separate the various herds, and they are driven out the access tunnels in
turns to forage in the jungles below the pass,  under  the  watchful  eyes  of
herding akks. But even this half measure is becoming problematic: as more  and
more grassers arrive, the Korunnai must take the  herds  farther  and  farther
afield, to avoid thinning the jungle so much that it might reveal  the  base's
location.
     I do understand, now, why Depa doesn't want to leave.
     We rode her ankkox right up one of the concealed tunnels.  When  we  left
the gloom of the jungle for the deeper darkness underground, Depa pulled  back
the curtains of her howdah and moved forward  to  the  chair  mounted  on  the
beast's crown armor, and she seemed to inhale serenity with the thick stinking
air.
     Everyone we passed-everyone we saw-
     There was no cheering, or even shouts;  the  welcome  she  got  was  more
profound than anything that can be expressed by voice.
     A woman, huddled against a sweating stone wall, caught sight of Depa, and
pushed herself forward, and her face might have been a flower  opening  toward
the sun. Depa's mere presence brought light to her eyes, and strength  to  her
legs. The woman struggled to rise, pulling herself up  the  tunnel  wall  then
leaning upon it for support, and she stretched a hand toward us, and when Depa
gave her a nod of acknowledgment, the woman's hand closed to catch Depa's gaze
from the air; she pressed that closed hand to her breast as  though  that  one
simple glance was precious.
     Sacred.
     As though it was exactly the one thing she needed to keep on living.
     And  that's  what  our  welcome  here  was:  that  woman,  multiplied  by
thousands. The warriors and the wounded. The aged. The sick  and  the  infirm,
the children-
     Depa is more than a Jedi to them. Not a  goddess-Force-users  themselves,
they are not easily impressed by Jedi powers. She is, I think, a totem. She is
to them what a Jedi should be to everyone, but writ so large upon their hearts
that it has become a form of madness.
     She is their hope.
     [Rostu]: "It's true, y'know."
     Nick?
     [Rostu]: "You think things are bad here? Okay,  sure:  they're  bad.  Not
just here here. The whole highland. Bad enough. But you got no  idea  what  it
was before Depa-y'know, we're not the bad guys here."
     No one has suggested that you are. Nor are you the good guys.  I  haven't
seen any good guys.
     [Rostu]: "So far? I've seen one. No: two."
     You have?
     [Rostu]: "All that good guy, bad guy stuff goes out the air  lock  pretty
fast, doesn't it? I mean, you know why Pelek Baw withdrew from  the  Republic?
It's got nothing to do with 'corruption in the Senate' and all that  political
tusker poop, either. The Balawai joined the Confederacy  because  the  seppies
promised to respect their sovereignty. Get it? Planetary rights. And the  only
planetary right the Balawai care about is  the  right  to  kill  us  all.  The
seppies park their droid starfighters and support staff at the spaceport,  and
all of a sudden the militia has an  unlimited  supply  of  gunships,  and  the
Balawai have made it illegal for a Korun to be  outside  the  city  limits  of
Pelek Baw, and pretty soon they start rounding up  Korunnai  from  inside  the
city, too-not everybody, you understand, just the criminals. The beggars,  and
street kids. And troublemakers. For the record, a troublemaker  is  any  Korun
who says Word One about the way we're treated.
     'They had a camp for us. I was there. That's where  Depa  found  us.  You
think things are ugly here? You should see what she saved us from.
     'So maybe we went from living there to dying here. So? You think  there's
a difference? You think that was better?
     'You go live in a cage if you want. Me? I'll die a free man. That's  what
Depa is to us.
     'That's who you're taking away."
     She would be leaving you soon, regardless.
     [Rostu]: "Says you."
     She is dying, Nick. The war is killing her. This planet is killing her.
     The Korunnai are killing her.
     [Rostu]: "Nobody here would ever hurt her-" Not on purpose.
     But she is drowning in your anger, Nick.
     [Rostu]: "Hey, I'm just mildly cranky."
     Not you personally. Ail of you. This whole place.
     The unending violence... without hope, or remedy...
     A Jedi's connection to  the  Force  amplifies  everything  about  us:  it
invests our smallest actions with the greatest conceivable weight. It makes us
more of whatever we already are. If we are calm, it gives us serenity.  If  we
are angry, it fills us with the rage of a god. Anger  is  a  trap.  You  might
think of it as a narcotic, not unlike glitterstim. Even  the  slightest  taste
can leave you with an appetite that never fades.
     This is why we Jedi must strive always to build peace  within  ourselves:
what is within will be reflected by what is without. The Force is One. We  are
part of the Force; it will always be, at least partially, whatever we are.
     Just as it is too late for Kar Vaster to become a Jedi, it  is  too  late
for Depa to become a lorpelek. She is willing to give her life  to  help  your
people. Are you willing to take it?
     [Rostu]: "Hey, don't look at me like that. I'm onyour side, remember?"
     So.
     The Halleck must be insystem by now; we should be seeing a lander's vapor
trail any minute.
     And Depa is headed up to meet us.
     [Rostu]: "She is? What, you can feel her?"
     Not directly. But-characteristically-part of her plan to keep Kar and his
Akk Guards out of our way included retrieving my lightsaber. In  details  like
this-these little considerations, her automatic kindness-I find my  hope  that
she is not wholly lost.
     Though I can rebuild my blade, she-
     There was a sadness-
     Melancholy resignation: that is the best I can describe  her  expression,
when she promised my lightsaber's return. Though the weapon is itself no great
thing, she seemed near tears.
     'I could not bear for your journey here to cost you anything more than it
already has," she told me this morning, as I left her to come up here to wait.
     I can feel clearly the approach of my lightsaber; and now I feel hers, as
well. Winding toward us through the natural fissures in the rock that  make  a
passageway  from  this  cave  to  the  interior  caverns.  It  is  odd-in   an
apprehensive, premonition-of-dreadful-tragedy sort  of  way-that  I  can  feel
Depa, the Depa I know, only in her weapon.
     [Rostu]: "Urn, does that appre-pre-whatever of dreadful  tragedy  by  any
chance translate into Basic as,' have  a  bad  feeling  about  this?  Because,
y'know, now that you mention it-"
     I feel it too-but I have had only bad feelings ever since I came to  this
planet.
     [Rostu]: "I've been wondering-I mean, we've been up  here  a  long  time.
Haven't you started to wonder if Depa didn't send us up here so she could  get
Kar out of the way? If she sent us up here to get us out of the way?"
     This has occurred to me. I have refused to allow myself to  consider  it.
Depa is not like that; she is not given to trickery, much less  betrayal.  She
has said she will join us here. That means she will join us. Here.
     She's only steps away-
     [Rostu]: "Or maybe, y'know: not."
     You...
     [Rostu]: "That's far enough. Stop! I mean it."
     [The final sound on Master Windu's Haruun  Kal  journal  is  a  nonverbal
vocalization similar to a large predator's warning growl.]
 


    [END JOURNAL]


     THE TRAP
     Nick stood in a classic shooter's stance, slug pistol in his  right hand,
left shoulder forward, right arm straight across his body, left  hand  cupping
his right and the pistol's butt.
     His target was a needle-pointed grin just visible within the  fissure  at
the back of the cave.
     Mace came to his feet  smoothly  but  deliberately,  without  any  sudden
motion. "Don't do it, Nick."
     'I'd rather not," Nick admitted. "But I will if I have to."
     'I've seen him block blaster bolts. He can do the same with bullets.  You
won't have a chance."
     'Says you." Nick's voice was uncharacteristically calm and flat, and  his
hands were as steady as the mountain around them. "You haven't seen me shoot."
     'This is the wrong time to show me." Mace put one hand on Nick's arm  and
let its tired weight pull the pistol down. "Come on out, Kar."
     The darkness in the fissure gathered itself into the  shape  of  the  lor
pelek. His vibroshields were pushed back onto his upper arms.
     In his hands he held two lightsabers.
     Mace sagged as all hope and faith drained out  of  him.  Only  exhaustion
remained.
     He had been trying so hard, for so  long,  to  believe  in  her,  and  in
himself, and in the Force. He had made  himself  believe:  he  had  ruthlessly
disciplined his mind against any dread of failure. After all, this  was  Depa,
his Padawan, almost his child-he had known her all her life-
     All but her first few months, and her last few months.
     Vaster  walked  past  Nick  without  a  sideways  glance,   holding   the
lightsabers on his open palms.
     A peace offering.
     She asked me to-
     'I know," Mace murmured.
     She said she did not want you to lose anything more by coming  here  than
you already have.
     'I haven't."
     And it was true: he had lost nothing real. Not on Haruun Kal. He had lost
her before he'd ever set foot on the shuttle's landing ramp. He had  lost  her
before the massacre and the message on the wafer. He had lost  her  before  he
even sent her here.
     Depa Billaba was another casualty of his failure at Geonosis.
     She was just taking longer to die.
     All he had lost on Haruun Kal was an illusion. A dream. A hope so  sacred
that he had not dared to admit it, even to himself: a fantasy that someday the
galaxy would be again at peace.
     That everything would go back to normal.
     Do you need to sit down, doshalo? Vaster's purr was guardedly  concerned.
You look unwell.
     'So this is the kiss-off, huh?" Nick had his gun back in its holster, but
he looked like he was shooting at  Vaster  inside  his  head.  "Pretty  scummy
trick, if you ask me."
     Tell your boy to mind his tongue when he speaks of Depa.
     Mace only shook his head silently. He was out of words.
     'I mean, that's low. And I know something about low, if you know  what  I
mean. The kiss-off's bad enough, but to send her  lightsaber  along  so  you'd
think it was her-"
     'That's not why she sent it," Mace said softly. "Kar's giving  them  both
to me."
     Vastor's growl was absolute as a vine cat's stare: pitiless  but  somehow
not unsympathetic. She said you would understand.
     Mace nodded distantly. "She has no use for it anymore."
     Nick frowned at him. "She doesn't?"
     'It is the weapon of a Jedi."
     'Oh."
     'Yes."
     Mace lowered his head.
     'She's trying to tell you-"
     'Yes."
     Mace closed his eyes.
     He could no longer bear to look at this place.
     'It's killing her," he said faintly. "Being here. Doing these  things  If
she stays, she will die."
     Everyone dies, doshalo. But Haruun Kal is her  problem.  This  is  he't't
place. She knows it now. She belongs here. The jungle isn't killing her.
     You are.
     Mace opened his eyes to meet the lorpeleKs concentrated stare.
     She never stops thinking of you, Vaster rumbled. What is killing  he;  is
imagining what you must think of her. What she knows you think o what she  has
done, and will do. She measures herself by your standards that your  standards
are fatally wrong doesn't make her  failure  to  live  uj  to  them  any  less
painful.
     You are her sire, Mace Windu. Do you not understand how  much  sht  loves
you?
     'Yes." He wished she could understand how much he loved her.. But if  she
did, would she have done anything differently? Or woulc she only  be  in  even
greater pain? "Yes, I do."
     This is why she sent me to deliver these weapons, and her good-byes.  Sh>
could not face you.
     Mace breathed a heavy sigh, then straightened  his  shoulders  "She,"  he
said slowly, sadly, reluctantly, "will have to get over that."
     Eh?
     'I'm sorry this is painful for her. It's  not  fun  for  me  either;  the
closest thing to fun I've  had  on  this  planet  was  being  beaten  into  un
consciousness," he said. "I told her I would not leave this world without her.
And I won't. Nothing has changed."
     You think not? Step out here, doshalo. The lorpelek  walked  out  of  the
cave shadow into the brilliant red-smeared afternoon on the cliffside  meadow.
This is not the only cave on this mountain.
     Mace followed him, and Kar waved a lightsaber at the  vast  mountainside,
pocked with shadows. In one of them waits one of my men. Over the past months,
we have captured some heavy infantry weapons from the Balawai.  One  of  those
weapons is a shoulder-fired proton torpedo launcher.
     'Threats will not move me, Kar. I have told her  that  I  will  die  here
rather than leave her behind."
     You misunderstand. The torpedo is not for you; if I want you  dead,  lean
kill you myself.
     'That," said Mace Windu, "remains to be seen."
     Soon the lander will arrive to take you away from here.  If  you  do  not
leave on it, my man will destroy it. Your pilots, and gunners,  and  soldiers,
and whoever else who has come to bring you away: they will all die.
     Now Mace did, finally, look into the sky. Limitless turquoise:  the  only
clouds to be seen were vapor trails along the horizon.
     You see? You are not the only one here who can take hostages.
     'Do you know," Mace said wonderingly, "that I am almost grateful  to  you
for this?"
     I understand: it makes what you must do much easier.
     'Yes. Exactly. You have made my choice for me."
     'What's wrong?" Nick asked from the shadows. "What's he  saying  to  you?
We're still leaving, aren't we?"
     'A  great  deal  is  wrong,"  Mace  replied.  "He  has  said  nothing  of
consequence, and no, we are not leaving. Not without Depa."
     Vastor's head drew down, and his eyes flickered  danger.,'  do  not  make
idle threats.
     'That you are here means I did not know Depa as well as I thought I  did.
That the two of you would expect me to bow to this threat means that she knows
me even less."
     The lander will be destroyed. It will be as though you have  killed  them
yourself.
     'There is no as though." Mace turned and lifted  his  head  to  look  Kar
Vastor in the eye. "What it will be is you, Kar Vaster, taking up arms against
the Republic."
     The Republic has nothing to do with this. This is  personal.  You  cannot
pretend-
     'I placed Depa under formal arrest  three  days  ago.  She  gave  me  her
parole-that is to say, her word of honor as a Jedi that she would not  attempt
to escape, or otherwise avoid returning to answer for her actions  before  the
Jedi Council. She has violated her word, and her honor. I must  now  take  her
into custody. And you, as well."
     Me? You are mad.
     'Kar Vastor," Mace said flatly, "you  are  charged  with  the  murder  of
Terrel Nakay."
     'Uh, Master, mm, General-? Sir? You sure you know what you're doing?"
     Vastor stared in blank disbelief. Your men will die.
     'They are soldiers, and this is a war. They  understand  the  risks  they
face," Mace said. "Do you?"
     What risks?
     'When your man fires upon the lander, you will  have  committed  treason.
Implicated in your crime, Depa will face the same charge. You are placing  her
in capital jeopardy: that is, she will be executed along with you."
     Vastor's growl did not now carry words. Only contempt and anger.
     'Perhaps you should order your man to stand down. While you still can."
     Depa is right: Jedi are insane.
     'Ever since I came to this planet, people have been telling me how  crazy
I am. They've told me this so many times that I had started to  wonder  if  it
might be true. Now, though, I understand: you  don't  say  this  because  it's
true. Not even because you think it's true. You say it because you  hope  it's
true. Because if I am insane, you aren't really  the  revolting  slime-hearted
vermin that, down deep, you know you are."
     But Vastor no longer seemed to be listening. He had  folded  his  massive
arms so that the lightsabers in his hands disappeared behind his  ultrachrome-
shielded biceps. He paced meditatively away from Mace,  strolling  toward  the
meadow's cliff lip, and stared out over the vast roll  of  jungle  below.  The
vista was alive with gunmetal specks and distant flashes of cannonfire.
     Many gunships patrol today, he hummed. More than I have ever seen.
     'Mace-" Nick hissed from the cave behind. "You know that  bad  feeling  I
was talking about? It's getting worse."
     "Yes."
     'Maybe you better get back in here where it's safe." 
     "Nowhere  is  safe," Mace said, and walked out to  join  Vaster  at  the 
edge of the cliff.
     I have tried, Vaster purred when Mace reached his side. I have  done  all
that can be asked of me. Not even Depa can say I did not  try  to  spare  your
life. But you will not be reasonable. 
     "It is not in my nature."
     This as  you said earlier: you have made my choice for me. There is only
one way to protect her from you. 
     "That is true."
     Mace reached down inside himself until he found the  calm  center  within
his exhaustion and his pain. He breathed himself into that center until he was
fully within it, and all pain and fatigue and doubt were left behind  outside.
"Do we fight, now?"
     We must.
     It is bitter, that we last men ofghosh Windu must be enemies. I wish this
could have turned out differently, but I did not expect  it  would.  Depa  has
told me that you do not lose well. "I haven't had much practice."
     Vaster bent his head in a regretful nod of respect. Good-bye, Mace,  Jedi
of the Windu.
     A tiny surge of the Force-
     Just a twitch. A shrug. The slightest nudge, not even directed  at  Mace;
sent off somewhere into the trees below the pass-A signal.
     The scene, frozen in time, locked in the  amber  of  Mace's  Force-sense:
Vaster standing with arms folded,  not  the  slightest  hint  of  threat,  his
shields pushed high on  his  arms,  those  arms  still  crossed  to  bury  the
lightsabers that he held under his massive biceps-
     Mace beside him, exposed on the lip of the cliff, unarmed-
     Gunships rippling the jungle canopy far below in shock wakes, silent with
distance-
     Nick behind in the cave, rifle leaning against the rock, one hand yanking
the butt of his bolstered pistol in a draw that  to  ordinary  eyes  would  be
blinding-
     And a man hidden in the shadows of the jungle a kilometer away,  smoothly
squeezing the trigger of a high-powered sniper's blaster  rifle  to  send  one
single packet of murderous scarlet energy clawing up toward  the  meadow  from
the jungle below-
     Centered on Mace Windu's heart.
     All this Mace kenned in a single instant,  effortlessly,  and  the  shat-
terpoint he found and struck by instinct was Vastor's balance at  the  lip  of
the cliff.
     Calmly, without any particular haste,  Mace  put  his  hand  on  Vastor's
shoulder and gave the lorpelek a shove.
     Over the edge.
     Vastor's eyes bulged astonishment as he  toppled  forward  and  his  arms
uncrossed to windmill for his balance. His teetering swung his head  just  far
enough in the right direction that the bullet from Nick's slug pistol scorched
Vastor's temple instead of blowing his brains out through  his  eyes;  as  his
arms whirled, his grip on the lightsabers  loosened.  Mace  reached  into  the
Force, snatching them both, triggering them to flaring life and bringing  them
to his hands with an easy six or seven milliseconds to spare before he  needed
them to splatter aside the bolt from the jungle below.
     Vastor's vine cat reflexes whirled him in the air and latched  his  hands
onto the rock face a meter below the lip of the cliff. His confederate in  the
jungle poured fire up at Mace to drive him back, while Nick  ran  out  of  the
cave behind him, shouting "Did I get him? Is he  dead1?  Is  he  dead?"  until
Vaster threw himself back up into the meadow, bringing his  vibroshields  into
fighting position with a surge of the Force.
     Nick fired as fast as his finger could  jerk  the  pistol's  trigger  and
bullets clanged off Vastor's flashing shields-
     And Mace just stood there.
     Staring into his blade.
     In the Force, the world had turned to crystal.
     The purple flame of his blade splintered  flaws  throughout  the  planet.
Stress fractures spidered from his blade to Vaster, to Nick, into the mountain
behind, into the pass below, and to space above, racing in  outrippling  waves
that joined him with what was, but also with what had been, and what would be.
     Triggering his blade here, now: it was a shatterpoint of  the  Summertime
War.
     His consciousness splintered along with  the  world,  flashing  instantly
along the fault lines and vectors of effect: for a single instant, he  was  in
direct and intimate contact with many different times and places.
     He saw it all.
     As though from some impossible distance, he  saw  the  Balawai  prisoners
kneeling on the promontory, and how gunships had arrived  almost  before  he'd
even lit the wood he'd piled up to make a signal fire.
     He saw the gunships arrive at the outpost,  only  minutes  after  he  had
ignited this weapon to defend the children in the bunker from the  hasty  fire
of their own people's weapons.
     He saw Vaster below the outpost's ruins,  and  heard  again  his  growled
meaning: My men say you drove them off single-handed, though they did not seem
to be damaged. Perhaps you have taught Balawai to fear thejedi blade.
     But they did not fear it, he knew.
     He saw the gunships at the notch pass: flying away only seconds after  he
first flashed his blades. They had been ordered to withdraw.
     Because he'd been alone.
     Because if he was killed before he reached  Depa  and  her  guerrilla  it
wouldn't solve the militia's Jedi problem.
     He saw himself in  the  Pelek  Baw  alley,  staring  in  disbelief  at  h
depowered lightsaber.
     He saw the hours he'd spent in the binder chair in that dirty rooi in the
Ministry of Justice, waiting; that long wait hadn't  been  an  ir  terrogation
technique. Geptun had never intended to interrogai him in the first place.
     Following that stress fault back in time, he saw a shielded  room  i  the
Ministry of Justice, where technicians made cut after cut with  h  lightsaber.
Where they had shot the blade with blaster bolts and bu lets, and used  it  to
cut thyssel, and lammas, and portaak leave duracrete, transparisteel.
     So that they could measure and record the emission signature <this blade.
     So that their satellites would recognize  it  whenever  it  was  usei  No
matter what it might be used for.
     That's why his blade had been out of charge. Geptun had probaly  had  no
idea about that upcountry team; he'd wanted Mace to go out of Pelek Baw.
     Wanted him to make contact with Depa and the "ULF."
     Wanted to find where all the missing Korunnai had been hiding
     Now in the meadow, other stress faults connected his  mind  '  dozens  of
gunships that converged on the Lorshan Pass. Gunship packed with eager troops,
trailing billows of hate and fear and fieri anticipation like  the  ash  plume
from an erupting volcano.
     One fracture terminated at an orbiting satellite that whizzt  across  the
face of the planet at almost twenty-eight thousand kilometers  per  hour,  and
through the fracture he  could  feel  a  silicon   brain  make  an  electronic
connection. He could feel tl execution of a simple  command  program,  and  he
could feel aut<mated clamps releasing huge durasteel bars layered  in  ablati1
shielding, and he could feel primitive  guidance  jets  driving  them  in  the
atmosphere at an angle too steep for any spacecraft to survive.
     But these were not spacecraft, and they were not intended to survive.
     Vaster was still in the air, and Nick was still  twisting  to  track  him
with his blazing pistol,  when  Mace  Windu  whipped  his  arms  straight  and
shouted, "Stop!"
     The Force blasts that accompanied the Jedi Master's command clubbed  Nick
to the ground and sent Vaster spinning against the mountain's face  above  the
cave.
     'What are you doing?" Nick rolled to his feet and snapped the pistol back
into line. "He just tried to frag you-kill him!"
     Vaster crouched above, clinging to the rock like a krayt dragon. No  more
talking. It is time to fight.
     'Yes," Mace Windu said. "But not each other. Look around you!"
     He swung his arm toward the jungle below the pass.
     All the patrolling gunships, the dozens that had  leisurely  crisscrossed
the jungle all these past days,  now  traced  converging  streaks  that  would
intersect at the Lorshan Pass.
     Nick swore, and Vaster's growl lost meaning.
     'And there," Mace said, pointing to what seemed to be a slowly developing
dark cloud, high above the mountains, but was in fact the smoke from  ablative
shielding burning off in the atmosphere.
     The center of the cloud grew red, then orange, then pale as a  blue-white
star: ion thrusters kicking in.
     Nick frowned. "That can't be the lander-the angle's all wrong,  and  it's
coming in way too fast."
     'It isn't," Mace said. "I should say, they aren't."
     'I'm not gonna like this, am I?" Nick passed a hand over his  eyes.  "Oh,
nuts. Ohhh, nuts nuts nuts. You're about to tell me those are DOKAWs."
     'At least five. More to follow."
     YOU! Vastor's explosive roar seemed to yank him off  the  rock  face  and
carry him raging to the meadow. He shook a sizzling shield at  Mace.  This  is
YOUR fault! YOU have brought them here!
     'There will be time later to argue  blame."  Mace  let  the  lightsabers'
blades shrink to nonexistence. "There's something we need to do right now."
     'What's that?"
     The Jedi Master looked from the lorpelek to the young Korun officer, then
into a sky at the durasteel missiles streaking through the atmosphere.
     At thirty thousand kilometers per hour, and accelerating.
     Mace Windu said, "Run."
     They ran.


     PART THREE

     SHATTERPOIKT
     SHOCKWAVES

     A fully-assembled  De-Orbiting Kinetic Anti-emplacement  Weapon  (DOKAW)-
hardened durasteel spear, ablative shielding, miniature ion  drive,  and  tiny
attitude thrusters-massed slightly more than two  hundred  kilograms.  By  the
time the spear impacted a target at ground level, the  shielding,  the  drive,
and the attitude thrusters, as well as a fair bit of  the  hardened  durasteel
itself, would have all burned away; the final warhead massed  in  the  general
neighborhood of one hundred kilograms, slightly  more  or  less  depending  on
angle of entry, atmospheric density, and other minor concerns.
     These concerns were minor because  the  DOKAW  was  not,  in  it-serf,  a
particularly sensitive or sophisticated weapon; its virtues lay  more  in  the
the realm of being inexpensive to produce and simple to operate, which is  why
it was found mostly in more primitive back-world areas of the galaxy.  It  was
vulnerable to counterfire from turbolaser  batteries, for example. It was also
largely useless against a target capable of even rudimentary  evasive  action,
and once its attitude thrusters had burned away, mere atmospheric disturbances
would be sufficient to push  it  off  course,  making  it  less  than  ideally
accurate against stationary targets smaller than a medium-sized town. Because,
after all, it was basically just a hundred-kilo hunk of durasteel.
     Ideal accuracy, though, was also a minor concern, because at the point of
impact, this hundred-kilo spear of hardened durasteel was  traveling  at  well
over ten kilometers per second,
     In a word:
     WHAM.
     Mace, Nick, and Kar had reached the widening throat of the first  of  the
major caverns when the floor dropped out from under them for  one  astonishing
second, then jumped back up and smacked them tumbling through the  air  toward
the jagged rock roof overhead.
     The blast transcended sound.
     Mace controlled his spin instinctively so that he could absorb the impact
against the roof with bent legs. His Force-hold caught Nick a meter  short  of
severe head trauma; then  as  they  both  fell  back  toward  the  floor,  the
pressure-wave of superheated air that shrieked in through the fissure from the
meadow cave sent them skidding and bouncing and  rolling  over  the  rough-cut
floor in a hailstorm of rock shards and burning dirt.
     Mace kept his Force-hold on Nick; as  they  skidded  to  a  stop  in  the
nightmare of dust and smoke and  screaming,  he  set  Nick  on  his  feet  and
crouched beside him. "Stay up!" he shouted. "Stay low but off the floor?
     He huddled there, hands jammed  against  his  ears,  bounced  by  another
blast-lesser-and another lesser still, the natural inaccuracy  of  the  DOKAWs
causing some scatter. A final convulsion of the mountain cracked the  roof  of
the cavern and rained  boulders  at  random.  Some  screams  were  crushed  to
gurgles; others scaled up to shrieks of agony.
     Two seconds passed-two more-and Mace  sprang  to  his  feet.  Light  from
glowglobes made luminous spheres that could  not  overlap  through  the  thick
swirl of dust and smoke that stung tears into his eyes; one incautious  breath
sent him into a paroxysm of coughing. He yanked Nick  to  his  side-the  young
Korun had an arm over his streaming eyes and he was  hacking  into  his  other
hand-and Mace grabbed the hem of his homespun tunic with both hands.
     'Hey-hackhagh-hey, what are you-"
     'We need your shirt."
     With one twist he ripped the tunic in half up  the  back;  another  twist
continued the rip from collar to waist in front. He left half in Nick's  hands
while he tied his own half over his face in a sort  of  hood.  The  cloth  was
coarse enough to see through, and it cut the dust and smoke  from  intolerable
down to merely hellish.
     While Nick imitated him, Mace picked his way around the rubble  and  over
dead and wounded Korunnai toward a gleam of ultra-chrome under a huge slab  of
stone. He dropped to his heels beside it and gestured, clearing smaller  rocks
away from the lorpelek.
     'Kar? Can you hear me?"
     Even hoarse with dust and pain,  Vastor's  growl  had  a  sardonic  edge.
Better stand back. When you're around, big hard things  seem  to  fall  on  my
head.
     Mace breathed himself  into  his  center,  and  found  the  slab's  shat-
terpoint. "Don't move."
     His blade flared, bit in, and the slab cracked in two over Vastor's back.
A shrug of Vastor's huge shoulders shifted the two pieces enough that he could
push himself up to his knees between them. He was caked with dust,  and  blood
trickled from an ugly gash over one ear.
     You could have killed me. You should have.
     'You're no good to me dead," Mace said. "Is there  a  hardpoint  in  this
base? A hardened bunker, preferably airtight?"
     The heavy weapon lockup. It can be sealed.
     'All right. Get all the non-ambulatory sick and wounded in there and seal
it up. When the militia comes, they'll start with gas."
     Vaster and Nick exchanged grim looks.
     Mace glanced over his shoulder. "Nick. You're with me. Let's go."
     We'll never hold them. Not for a day. Not an hour.
     'We don't have to hold them ourselves. I have a medium cruiser  in-system
that's carrying a regiment of the finest soldiers this galaxy has ever  seen."
Mace put one hand on Vastor's shoulder, and the other on Nick's, and there was
a strange shine to his dark eyes. "We aren't going to  hold  them.  We  aren't
even going to fight them. With the Halleck for  air  cover  and  the  troopers
holding the ground, those twenty landers can evacuate this entire place within
hours."
     'Grassers and all?"
     Mace nodded. "We just have to get them here."
     DOKAWs pounded the mountain. Korunnai ran and  screamed  and  bled.  Some
tried to help the wounded. Some  died.  Some  huddled  shivering  against  the
nearest wall.
     Mace kept moving.  Nick  trotted  at  his  heels.  Sometimes  shock-waves
knocked them down. Sometimes the dust was so bad that Mace had to light  their
way with scatter from his and Depa's blades.
     'Why do you need me! You were in the  comm  center  this  morning,"  Nick
gasped through a mouthful of dust that his spit had turned to mud.  "I'm  good
with a medpac. You go on. I can look after wounded-"
     "That's why."
     Bladelight picked up jagged gleams ahead: the corridor was blocked with a
sloping wall of tumbled rock.
     'This is the only way I know to the comm center," Mace said. "I'm  hoping
you know another."
     Nick muttered a curse under his breath as  he  leaned  on  the  slope  of
boulders. "How deep is the rubble? Can you cut-" His eyes widened. "Hey, there
are people in there! Trapped! I can feel them-we've got to get them out!"
     'I feel them too. The  fall's  not  stable,"  Mace  said.  "Shifting  and
cutting will take more time than we have: the first mistake would  bring  tons
of stone down on their heads. We need another way to the comm center."
     'But-we can't just leave them in there-!"
     'Nick. Try to focus. Will they be safer out here?"
     'Well, I..." Nick frowned. "Well..."
     'Listen to me. There will be cave-ins throughout these  caverns.  We  can
dig survivors out later. We have to make sure enough people live through  this
to do the digging. Yes?"
     Nick nodded reluctantly. "Then let's go."
     The comm center was just a small natural cave with rude plank  tables,  a
few homemade chairs, and some equipment. "Probably not much left of the  relay
antennas," Nick muttered as they trotted toward it.
     'It's a little  late  to  worry  about  concealing  our  position,"  Mace
reminded him. "And subspace won't have any trouble going through rock."
     Nick squinted at the doorway, cursed,  and  broke  into  a  sprint.  "The
surgical field's down!" He darted inside.
     Mace went after him, but stopped in the doorway.
     The subspace comm unit lay on the floor, among the splinters of the plank
table; its housing looked like someone had rolled it down a  mountainside  and
dropped it off a cliff. The  realspace-frequency  units,  less  durable,  were
crushed. Nick was cursing continuously under his breath as he knelt  over  the
two Korun commtechs, who lay motionless on  the  floor  as  though  they  were
simply taking a nap in the ruins of their post.
     Mace said, "Nick."
     'They're dead," the young Korun said thickly. "They're both dead.  Not  a
mark on them. And-"
     'Nick, come out of there."
     Nick  prodded  one's  head  with  his  finger...  which  gave,  deforming
spongily, as though the man's skull were soft foam. "And they're squishy..."
     'We have to leave this place. Now."
     'What could do that to a man?"
     'Concussion," Mace said. "Shock transmission. This room must be part of a
solid structure that reaches to the surface-"
     'You're saying..." Nick looked at the  walls  around  him  with  widening
eyes. "You saying if another DOKAW hits the same  spot,  while  I'm  still  in
here-"
     'I'm saying-" Mace urgently extended a hand,"-cover your ears and jump."
     Mace took his own advice then drew on the Force to suspend them both, and
the air in the comm cave pounded them like they were caught in the palm  of  a
giant's handclap. He let the shock send them whirling back along  the  passage
away from the comm center, them released his  Force-hold  and  rolled  to  his
feet.
     Nick was saying something as Mace pulled him upright, but Mace heard only
a distant mutter over the high singing whine in  his  ears.  "You'll  have  to
speak up."
     Nick cupped one hand to his ear. "What?"
     'Speak upl"
     'What? You'll have to speak up!"
     Mace sighed and shoved Nick stumbling  along  the  corridor;  he  turned,
reaching into the Force as he extended a hand, and the sub-space unit  floated
out the doorway, down the passage and into his arms.
     He jogged after Nick while their  stunned  eardrums  recovered,  i  Three
minutes' scramble brought them to a a nexus of intersecting passageways,  some
cut, some natural. "This will have to do."
     'Do for what? What's left?" Nick sagged against the wall,  panting.  "And
what are you lugging that fraggin' thing around for?"
     Mace set the comm unit on the passage floor. He pulled off his improvised
dust-mask and frowned at the rear access panel; fasteners unscrewed themselves
and floated to a neat little pile in a dimple in the rock, joined  shortly  by
the access panel itself. Mace examined the leads and contacts inside the  unit
for a moment, then nodded.
     He opened his hand and his lightsaber jumped to it from its pocket inside
his vest. A flick of the Force tripped the handgrip's secret interior latch; a
curved section of the grip popped open, and Mace pulled out  the  power  cell.
Another flick of the Force bent a pair of lead-panels inside the  comm  unit's
guts. Mace wedged the powercell between them, and the unit's ready-lights came
on.
     'Hold this here," Mace said. Nick held the energy  cell  in  place  while
Mace keyed the HallecKs emergency channel.
     "Halleck, this is General Windu. This is  a  priority  clear-call,  inti-
ation code oh six one five. Acknowledge."
     The comm unit crackled to life in a burst of ECM static. A  stolid  voice
came faintly through the buzz: "Response... one nine."
     'Verification seven seven."
     'Go a... General."
     'Captain Trent, I need your status."
     'Regret to in... Cap... bridge crew... ously wounded. This  is  Commander
Urhal... der heavy... Repeat: We are under heavy DSF attack."
     Nick frowned. "DSF?"
     'Droid starfighter." Mace keyed the transmitter. "Can you hold?"
     '... gative. Too many... sustained heavy... shields and armor, but..."
     Through the bursts of static and washes of white hiss, the acting captain
of the Halleck sketched their situation: An unknown number of Trade Federation
droid starfighters had been lying in wait, deactivated  and  drifting  outside
the  system's  ecliptic  plane  amid  cometary  dust  and  debris  of  ancient
asteroids. The commander guessed that it was something about the lander itself
that had triggered them; they had attacked as soon as  the  extraction  lander
un-docked and made for orbit. The lander had been lost with all hands, and the
DSFs  had  quickly  overwhelmed  the  Halleck's  escort  complement   of   six
starfighters; they were pounding the cruiser with  everything  they  had.  The
ship Mace had been looking to for rescue was already fighting for its life.
     And losing.
     Mace balanced on his heels, staring into the rock wall beside him.
     The granular surface gleamed with sweat condensed from  his  breath,  and
flecks of mineral sparkled within it, but Mace didn't  see  any  of  that.  He
wasn't looking at the stone. He was looking into the stone. Through the stone.
     Into the Force.
     'So that's it, then, huh?" Nick's words came distantly  to  Mace's  ears,
hollow and faint, as though he spoke from the bottom of a  well.  "There's  no
way we can evacuate."
     'That's it, yes. No way." This was a  reflexive  echo;  Mace  was  barely
aware of what Nick had said, and not at all aware that he  had  answered.  "No
way..."
     His consciousness was elsewhere.
     'Have I mentioned how much I hate this place? Every time I come here it's
like being buried alive..."
     Into the Force-
     Mace wasn't actually looking, not really;  the  sense  he  used  was  not
sight. This sense invaded the Force, touching  power  and  letting  the  power
touch it, shading the power then drawing on the shade it created to deepen its
own shade, feeding upon the Force and feeding  the  Force  in  a  regenerative
spiral, gathering strength, spidering outward from this  specific  nowhere-in-
particular-right-now to the general ail-where of every time: from a crossroads
inside a mountain that stood in a jungle the size of a continent, on  a  world
that whirled through a galaxy that was rapidly becoming a jungle of its own.
     This sense brought to his perception the stress-vectors  of  reality.  It
was more than the searching of a shatterpoint, it was as  though  this  single
moment existed in a crystal shell, and if he could strike it  in  exactly  the
right way, the shell enclosing this one would shatter as  well-and  the  shell
enclosing that shell, and on, and on, a single stroke whose  Shockwaves  would
propagate outward to crash through the trap that held not only him  and  Nick,
but Depa and Kar and the Korunnai, the world  of  Haruun  Kal,  the  Republic,
perhaps the galaxy itself: more than  a  chain  of  shatterpoints,  it  was  a
fountain of shatterpoints. A cascade.
     An avalanche.
     If he could only find the spot to strike...
     Faintly,  distantly,  resonating  from   the   here-and-now   to   Mace's
everywhere-at-once: "We're trapped in here...  The  whole  fraggin'  planetary
militia is outside, and there's nobody who can get here to help us, and  we're
all gonna die. This is a stupid place to die. Stupid, stupid, stupid."
     'Stupid," Mace echoed. "Stupid, yes... Stupid! Exactly.1"
     "Are  you  even listening to me?"
     'You," Mace said, his gaze slowly returning from the stone depths he  had
been contemplating, "are brilliant. Not to mention lucky."
     "Excuse me?"
     'Some years ago, the Jedi Order contemplated  using  droid  star-fighters
for antipirate work-convoying freighters, that sort of thing. Do you know  why
we decided against it?"
     'Do I care?"
     'Because droids are stupid"
     'Wow, that's a relief! I'd hate to be killed by a genius-"
     Mace turned back to the comm unit and  keyed  the  transmit  once  again.
"Commander, this is General Windu. All the troops-get  them  loaded  onto  the
remaining  landers,  and  get  those  landers  on  course  for  the   original
coordinates. ^,'/of them. The original coordinates. Do you copy?"
     'Yes, sir. But... no match for DSF... casualties... lucky if half of them
make atmosphere..."
     'That's not your problem. Once the landers are away, you  will  withdraw.
Do you copy? This is a direct order. When the landers are  away,  the  Halleck
will jump for Republic space."
     '... landers... only sublight. With no hyperdrive, how will you...?"
     'Commander, is there so little for you to  do  right  now  that  you  can
afford the time to argue with me? You have your orders. Windu out."
     He plucked the powercell out of the back of the comm unit and returned it
to the handgrip of his lightsaber. "Who's the best shooter you know?"
     Nick shrugged. "Me."
     'Nick..."
     'What, should I lie?"
     'All right. Second best."
     'Who's still alive?" Nick thought for a second  or  two.  "Chalk,  maybe.
She's pretty good. Especially with the heavy stuff. Or she  would  be  if  she
could, y'know, walk..."
     'She won't have to. Let's go."
     Nick stayed against the wall, shrugging hopelessly. "Why bother? It's not
like we can get anywhere, right? With the ship gone, there's nowhere to go."
     'There is. And we will go there."
     'Where?"
     'I'm not going to tell you."
     'You're not?"
     'I have had enough," Mace said, "of being told I'm insane."
     Nick rose warily, eyeing Mace as though the Jedi Master might be a  worrt
in disguise. "What are you talking about? You just mid there's no way  we  can
evacuate."
     'We're not going to evacuate. We're going to attack"
     Nick gaped. "Attack?' he echoed numbly.
     'Not just attack. We are going to beat them," said the Jedi Master, "like
a rented gong."
 


    SEEKER


     The   air in the weapons bunker was  thick  with  the  ozone  tang  of  a
surgical field and the rank pheromonal stink of  human  fear.  The  few  heavy
weapons that the guerrillas had cached were piled haphazardly outside the door
to make room for  the  endless  flood  of  stretchers  carried  by  grim-faced
Korunnai, bearing the sick and the wounded. Mostly sick.
     Mostly children.
     Mostly silent and round-eyed.
     The bearers would stumble whenever another DOKAW shook the mountain,  and
sometimes dump those they carried;  many  of  the  invalids  bled  from  fresh
scrapes. Nick threaded his way around them to look for Chalk; the  Korun  girl
had not left Besh's side since they both awakened from thanatizine suspension.
     Mace had stopped outside the doorway. His defocused  stare  gathered  the
inventory of the weapons there, and plugged them into  his  calculations:  new
data that made his image of the coming battle shift and flow and remold itself
like a stream of hardening lava. A tripod-mounted EWHB-10  with  an  auxiliary
fusion-generator  pack.  Two  shoulder-fired  torpedo  launchers,  with   four
preloaded launch tubes apiece. A rack of twenty-five proton grenades, still in
its factory-sealed case.
     That was all he'd need.
     The rest of the weapons were not relevant.
     Nick came out the doorway, moving hesitantly, as though in pain. "They're
not in there."
     'No?"
     Nick shook his head toward one of the stretcher-bearers. "They  told  me-
there's not enough room for all the... So Kar-" He swallowed, forcing distress
off his face and out of his voice. "All we're putting in here is people who'll
live."
     Mace nodded. "Where are the others?"
     'We call it the dead room. Follow me."
     The dead room was a huge cavern hung with night. The only light was  soft
yellow spill from a scatter of handheld glow rods. Unlike the other  inhabited
chambers, the floor of this one had not been leveled with vibro-bladed  adzes,
but had instead been cut into tiered ledges that followed the natural  contour
of the rock.
     The ledges were packed with the dying.
     No surgical field here: the air was thick  with  fecal  stench,  and  the
sickly sweet odor of rotten  meat,  and  the  indescribable  smell  of  spores
released by fungi feeding on human flesh.
     Nick halted a few paces in from the  entrance  and  closed  his  eyes.  A
moment later, he sighed and pointed up toward a far corner. "Over  there.  See
that light? Something's happening; I think Kar's with them."
     'Good. We need him, and we're running out of time."
     They had to tread  carefully  to  climb  the  levels  of  ledges  without
stepping on people in the gloom.
     Besh lay stretched out, motionless, barely breathing, on a ledge near the
ragged curve of the cavern ceiling. Vaster knelt beside him, eyes closed,  one
hand above Besh's heart. The medpac tissue-binder that had closed  the  wounds
left by Terrel's knife  had  lost  its  glossy  transparency,  blackening  and
curling like dead skin, and the wounds had erupted into cruciferous  bulbs  of
fungus that floresced faintly, iridescent green  and  purple  pulsing  in  the
shadows cast by Chalk's glow rod.
     Chalk sat cross-legged on Besh's other side, her  own  chest  bulky  with
spraybandage; head low, she sponged at the growths on Besh's chest with a damp
rag. Even from meters away, Mace caught a strong odor of alcohol  and  portaak
amber.
     Nick stopped a couple of meters short and gave Mace a  significant  look,
nodding toward the others as if to say, This was your idea. Leave  me  out  of
it.
     Mace approached slowly, staying on the next ledge down. He  stopped  when
he reached them and spoke softly to Chalk. "How is he?"
     She wouldn't look at him. "Dying. How are you?"
     She dipped her rag into the bucket, brought it out  again,  sponged,  and
returned it to the bucket with numb mechanical persistence:  doing  it  to  be
doing something, though she showed no sign of hope that it might help.
     'Chalk, we need you to come with us."
     'Not leaving him, me. Needs me, him."
     'We need you. Chalk, you have to trust me-"
     "Did trust you, me. So did Besh."
     Mace had no answer.
     Nick came to Mace's shoulder. "The Archives are starting to  look  pretty
good right now."
     The Jedi Master squinted at him.
     Nick shrugged. "Hey, it's the only immortality any of us  can  hope  for,
right?"
     'And how do you achieve immortality," Mace murmured, "if  my  journal  is
buried under a mountain on Haruun Kal?"
     'Uh. Yeah." Nick looked like his stomach hurt. "That could be a problem."
     'Forget about immortality. Let's concentrate on not dying today."
     Vaster's eyes were closed, and the Force shimmered around him. Mace could
feel some of what the lor pelek was doing: searching within Besh's  chest  for
the essential aura of the fungus that was killing him, focusing power upon  it
to burn it out spore by spore.
     Another shockwave rattled the  cavern.  Loose  rock  clattered  from  the
ceiling.
     'Kar," Mace said, "this is not the way. We don't have time."
     Vastor's eyes stayed closed. His expression did not so much  as  flicker.
Is there something better for me to be doing right now?
     'As a matter of fact," Mace said, "yes. There is."
     Does it involve killing Balawai?
     Mace said apologetically, "Probably not more than a thousand. Maybe two."
     Vaster opened eyes filled with pelekofan's  darkness.  Chalk  lifted  her
head, rag hanging forgotten from her fist.
     'So," said Mace Windu. "Are we on?"


     Smoke and dust clouded the huge cavern; it reeked of  grasser  fear-musk,
of dung and urine and blood, and with  each  new  DOKAW-shock  the  smell  got
worse.
     Torchlight flared and blazed and vanished again. The stinking fog swirled
with gigantic shapes: grassers bucking and clawing at each  other,  some  with
jaws panic-locked on their own or  others'  limbs.  They  charged  at  random,
slamming into each other, trampling the injured and their own young.  Korunnai
darted among them, appearing from the smoke and vanishing again, hands full of
sharp goads and blazing torches as  they  fought  to  separate  the  knots  of
shrieking, honking, fear-crazed beasts.
     A swirl opened a gap: a looming akk dog paused to stare into Mace's eyes,
measuring him with saurian malice as a thick rope of bloody drool looped  from
its jaws, then it ponderously turned aside and slipped  into  the  murk,  tail
tapering so smoothly it might have been dissolving.
     Mace threaded through the chaos.
     Behind him followed a pair Korunnai, carrying a stretcher that  held  the
EWHB and its generator. Two more brought the shoulder-fired torpedo  launchers
and the preloaded tubes on  another  stretcher.  Chalk  half-walked,  her  arm
looped over Nick's shoulders as he helped her along.
     Five more pairs of Korunnai  trotted  around  the  circumference  of  the
caverns, sidling past all the confusion and riot; one of each pair  carried  a
homespun sack holding five proton grenades  apiece,  and  the  others  carried
torches. Each pair soon slipped down a different one of the five vast passages
along which grassers were daily driven to graze.
     Erratic booming shivered the air,  sharper  and  much  smaller  than  the
DOKAW-shocks, but still powerful enough to vibrate  the  floor.  Mace  pointed
toward the source of the booming: a side cave where the great ankkox paced  in
restless fury. The concussions were its angrily whipping  tail  mace  striking
the walls and floor of its pen.
     The nearest Korun stretcher bearer saw his gesture,  and  they  moved  in
that direction, followed by Nick and Chalk.
     Mace paused, and looked back over his shoulder. At the mouth of an  upper
passageway stood Kar Vastor and his  Akk  Guards.  Behind  them  crouched  all
twelve of Vastor's Force-bonded akks.  The  lor  pelek  met  Mace's  gaze  and
nodded.
     Mace returned the nod, spreading his hands as  though  to  say,  Whenever
you're ready.
     Vastor and his akks marched grimly down into the grasser cavern. The akks
spread out in huge leaping springs, knocking over  panicked  grassers  on  all
sides, crouching over them to let drool fall from razor teeth and moisten  the
fur on their necks. The humans stayed together in a flying wedge  with  Vastor
at the point, moving in to manually separate struggling grassers, intimidating
the winners and slaughtering any who had been too badly injured to walk.
     Mace watched, stonefaced. It was wasteful. It was brutal.
     It was necessary.
     He turned once again to his own task.
     He gestured and the mass of struggling beasts and men parted before  him,
and the smoke and dust cleared, and he saw her.
     She sat on a ledge like a natural gallery that coursed  one  long-curving
wall of the cavern. Her feet hung over the lip, dangling free: a  child  in  a
chair too tall for her. Her face was buried in her hands, and even from across
the cavern his chest ached with a silent echo of her sobs.
     And when he reached her side, he still did not know what to say.
     'Depa..."
     She lifted her head and turned to meet his eyes, and knowing what to  say
would not have helped him because he could not speak.
     The rag-the one she had worn across her brow these past days-was gone. On
her forehead-
     On her forehead, where the Chalactan Greater Mark of Illumination  should
have been-
     As it had been in his hallucination, days ago at  the  jungle  prospector
outpost: on her brow was only an ugly keloid ripple of  scar.  As  though  the
Greater Mark of Illumination had been carved from the bone of her skull with a
blunt knife. As though the wound it left behind had festered, and had not been
treated.
     As though it festered still...
     The Lesser Mark, called the Seeker, still gleamed at the  bridge  of  her
nose. The Lesser Mark is fixed between the eyes of one who aspires to become a
Chalactan adept: it symbolizes the centered  self,  the  shining  vision,  the
elegant order that seeking illumination creates within the seeker. The Greater
Mark is called the Universe; it is an exact replica of the Seeker, writ large.
It is fixed to the frontal bone in a solemn ceremony  by  the  Convocation  of
Adepts, to welcome another to their company. The two, together, represent  the
fundamental tenet of Chalactan philosophy: As Without, So Within.  The  Adepts
of Chalacta teach that the celestial order, the natural laws that  govern  the
motion of planets and the wheel of galaxies, regulate as well the life of  the
Enlightened.
     But for Depa, the universe was gone. All that remained was the Seeker.
     Alone in the void.
     'Mace..." Her face twisted once more to tears. "Don't  look  at  me.  You
can't look at me. You can't see me like this. Please..."
     He lowered himself to one knee beside her. He reached  a  tentative  hand
for her shoulder; she clutched his fingers and pressed his hand in place,  but
turned her face away.
     'I'm so sorry..." Her head twitched as though she shook tears out of  her
eyes. "I'm sorry for everything. I'm sorry things can't be different.  Better.
I'm sorry,'can't be better..."
     'But you can." He squeezed her shoulder. "You can, Depa. You have to."
     'I'm so lost, Mace." Her whisper could not be heard in the  riot  of  the
cavern, but Mace could feel her meaning, as though the Force  itself  murmured
in his ear. "I'm so lost..."
     The Depa of his hallucination-what had she told him?
     He remembered.
     'It is in the darkest night," he said gently,  "that  the  light  we  are
shines brightest."
     'Yes. Yes. You always say that. But what do you  know  about  dark?"  Her
head sagged, chin to her chest, as though she  could  no  longer  think  of  a
reason to hold it up. "How does a blind man know the stars have gone out?"
     'But they haven't," Mace said. "They still burn as bright as ever. And as
long as people live around them, they will need Jedi. Like I need you now."
     'I am... I'm not a Jedi anymore. I quit. I resign. I withdraw. I  thought
you understood that."
     'I do understand it. I don't accept it."
     'It's not up to you."
     He pulled his hand from her shoulder and rose, looming  above  her.  "Get
up."
     She sighed, and once again a smile struggled onto her  tearstained  lips.
"I'm not your Padawan now, Mace. You can't order me-"
     "Get up?'
     Reflexes burned into her by more than a decade of unquestioning obedience
yanked her instinctively to her feet. She swayed dizzily, and her  mouth  hung
slack.
     'Minutes from now, nearly a thousand clone soldiers of the Republic  will
reach this position."
     New light kindled in her glazed eyes. "The Halleck-they can save us-"
     'No," Mace said. "Listen to me: We have to save them."
     'I-I don't understand-"
     'They are coming in under fire. This entire system is a trap. It's been a
trap all along. The Separatist pullback was bait, do you understand that?"
     'No... it's not true, it's not truel" But the flash faded from her  eyes,
and she sagged. "But of course it's true. How could I have thought  otherwise?
How could I have thought I would win?"
     'They've caught a medium cruiser. Not to mention two members of the  Jedi
Council. The Halleck may already be destroyed. The clone soldiers  are  coming
in aboard the surviving landers. They will  be  pursued  by  Trade  Federation
droid starfighters: faster, more  maneu-verable,  and  better-armed  than  the
landers. If our men are pinned between the starfighters and the militia,  they
won't have a chance. Whatever chance those men will  have,  we  have  to  give
them. You have to give them."
     'Me? What can,'do?"
     He opened his vest. Her lightsaber floated out of its  inner  pocket.  It
bobbed gently in the air between them.
     'You can make a choice."
     She looked from the lightsaber to his eyes and back again; she stared  at
the handgrip as though her reflection in  its  portaak  amber-smeared  surface
might whisper the future. "But you don't understand," she  said  faintly.  "No
choice of mine can matter here..."
     'It does to me."
     'Have you learned nothing on this world?  Even  if  we  do  save  them-it
doesn't matter. Not in the jungle. Look around you. This isn't  something  you
can fight, Mace."
     'Of course it is."
     'It's not an enemy, Mace. It's just the jungle.  You  can't  do  anything
about it. It's just the way things are."
     'I think," Mace said gently, "that you're the one who has failed to learn
the lessons of Haruun Kal."
     She shook her head hopelessly.
     'Don't tell me you can't fight the jungle, Depa," he said.  "That's  what
Korunnai do. Don't you understand that? That's what  their  whole  culture  is
based on. Fighting the jungle. They use grassers to attack  it,  and  akks  to
defend themselves from its counterattacks. That's what the Summertime  War  is
about. The Balawai want to use the jungle: to live - with it, to  profit  from
it. The Korunnai want to beat it into submission. To make  it  into  something
that is no longer trying to eat them alive. Now, think:  Why  do  Korunnai  do
that? Why are they enemies of Balawai? Why are they enemies of the jungle?" "A
riddle for your Padawan?" she said bitterly. "A lesson."
     'I am done with lessons."
     'We are never done with lessons, Depa. Not while we live. The  answer  is
right before your eyes. Why do Korunnai fight the jungle?"
     He opened his hand as though offering her the answer on his palm.
     Her eyes fixed on the handgrip of her lightsaber, floating between  them,
and something entered them then: some faint whisper  of  breeze  from  a  cool
clean place, a breath of air to ease her suffocating pain.
     'Because..." Her voice was hushed. Reverent.
     Awed by the truth.
     'Because they are descended from Jedi..."
     'Yes."
     'But... but... you can't fight the way things are..."
     'But we do. Every day. That's what Jedi are."
     Tears streamed from her reddened eyes. "You can never win-"
     'We," Mace corrected her gently, "don't have to  win.  We  only  have  to
fight."
     'You can't... you can't just forgive me..."
     'As a member of the Jedi Council-you're right. I can't. As your Master, I
won't. As your friend-"
     His eyes stung. The smoke, perhaps.
     'As your friend, Depa, I can forgive everything. I already have."
     She shook her head speechlessly, but she lifted a hand.
     Her hand shook. She made a fist, and bit her lip.
     He said, "Take your weapon, Depa. Let's go save those men."
     She took it.



     UNCONVENTIONAL WARFARE


     
     The militia landed in waves.
     Before the plume of dirt and smoke had subsided from the last impact of a
DOKAW into the mountain, gunships swooped over the  jungles  below  the  pass,
disgorging dozens, then hundreds of  arpitroops:  airborne  soldiers  equipped
with disposable repulsor packs, which lowered them briskly through the  canopy
below. They fanned out into the jungle bearing electronic sniffers that  could
detect certain chemicals in grasser urine in  concentrations  of  only  a  few
parts per billion. They swiftly located the five main tunnels to the  partisan
base and marked each one with high-powered beacons.
     The  gunships'  laser  cannons  blasted  away  the  jungle   canopy   and
surrounding trees to create a free-fire zone at the mouth of  each  tunnel.  A
kilometer away, a similar technique had been used to clear a landing zone  for
the troop shuttles, which were waiting onstation to drop five hundred soldiers
each before circling back to the embarkation area on the outskirts of the city
of Oran Mas, fifty klicks to the northwest.
     By the time the grasser tunnels had been marked, at least  five  thousand
militia regulars were on the ground, marching toward the zone of engagement.
     Ten thousand more followed close behind.
     The militia bore arms that the Grand Army of the  Republic  itself  might
envy; provided by the Separatists, which was backed by the financial might and
industrial capacity of the Trade Federation and the manufacturing guilds, this
armament had been financed by a generous slice of the thyssel bark trade.
     Standard combat equipment for the regular militia on Haruun Kal  included
the Merr-Sonn BC7 medium blaster  carbine  with  the  optional  rocket-grenade
attachment, six antipersonnel fragmentation grenades, and the renowned  close-
combat trench-style vibroknife, the Merr-Sonn Devastator, as well  as  Opankro
Graylite ceramic-fiber personal combat armor. In addition, every sixth soldier
carried a backpack flame projector, and each platoon of  twenty  was  equipped
with the experiemental MM(X) dual-operated grenade  mortar,  also  from  Merr-
Sonn.
     Fifteen thousand regulars. Thirty-five  GAVs  (ground  assault  vehicles:
converted steamcrawlers, retofitted with  chemical  cannons  firing  explosive
shells in addition to their flame projectors, and high-velocity repeating slug
rifles  blister-mounted  through  their  side  armor).  Seventy-three   Sienar
Turbostorm close-assault gunships.
     All this converged on the cavern base at the Lorshan Pass.
     To oppose them, the Korun partisans had roughly four hundred actives,  of
whom two-thirds were walking wounded, and  over  two  thousand  noncombatants,
consisting mainly of the elderly and the very young. They were  armed  with  a
variety of light slug rifles, a very few light and medium  energy  weapons,  a
small stockpile of grenades, two Krupx MiniMag shoulder-fired  proton  torpedo
launchers, and one Merr-Sonn EWHB-10 heavy repeating blaster.
     The partisans on Haruun Kal excelled at guerrilla  operations,  but  they
were less  successful  in  conventional  actions.  In  fact,  in  conventional
engagements between regular militia and the Korunnai, the militia had  crushed
the  partisans  in  every  encounter.  At  the  Lorshan   Pass,   they   quite
understandably expected not only to triumph, but to permanently break the back
of the Korun resistance.
     Most of the militia regulars at the Lorshan Pass never saw combat.  While
they were still establishing positions at the mouths of  the  access  tunnels-
before they'd so much as fired one blaster or launched  a  single  grenade-the
ground shook and the mountain roared, and mighty gusts of dirt and smoke  blew
out from four of the tunnel mouths.
     Scouting parties-a few of the bravest enlisted men, creeping  tentatively
into the dark-discovered that these tunnels  had  been  entirely  sealed  with
uncountable tons of rock. This left the bemused  militia  with  little  to  do
except break out ration packs and do their best to relax, while  taking  turns
scanning the mountain above with simple nonpowered binoculars for any signs of
partisan activity.
     Only one tunnel remained open. The regulars at the mouth of  this  tunnel
had a somewhat different experience of the battle.
     The detonation of the proton grenades in the other tunnels was  taken  by
the militia unit commander as an opportunity. The tunnel  his  men  faced  was
intact; he assumed this meant whatever explosives had been used for the  local
mines had misfired or otherwise failed to activate.  He  ordered  his  grenade
mortars forward, and launched into that tunnel a number of gas grenades loaded
with the nerve agent Tisyn-C.
     His men were first astonished, then dismayed, as these same grenades came
rocketing back out the tunnel's mouth  to  land  in  their  own  emplacements.
Tisyn-C was heavier than air, and though their Opanko  Graylite  combat  armor
was rated to protect them from gas exposure, none of the  regulars  wished  to
test this capability with a nerve  agent  known  to  produce  convulsions  and
dementia, followed by paralytic respiratory failure and death.  As  the  white
cloud rolled in to their improvised emplacements, the militia rolled out.
     And so they were in the open, more concerned with  what  was  among  them
than with what might be coming  next,  when  they  were  hit  by  the  grasser
stampede.
     Grassers were not bred to fight. Just the opposite, in  fact:  for  seven
hundred generations, Korunnai had bred their grassers to be docile and  easily
led, obedient to  commands  from  their  human  handlers  and  their  akk  dog
guardians, and to grow large and fat to provide  plenty  of  milk,  meat,  and
hide.
     On the other hand, an adult grasser bull could mass over one and one half
metric tons. His gripping limbs-the middle  and  forward  pairs-were  powerful
enough to uproot small  trees.  One  of  the  grassers'  favorite  treats  was
brassvine thorns, which had a hardness approaching durasteel;  bored  grassers
had been known to worry off chunks of armor from steamcrawlers.
     And seven hundred generations was  not  all  that  long  a  span,  on  an
evolutionary scale.
     These grasser bulls had been forced into  confined  quarters  for  weeks,
under incredible stress and in constant danger from each other. Today they had
endured a shattering bombardment that was entirely beyond their comprehension;
the most closely analogous event for which their  evolutionary  instincts  had
prepared them was a volcanic eruption. The  instinctive  grasser  response  to
eruption was blind panic.
     Honking, hooting grassers flooded from the  tunnel  mouth.  The  regulars
discovered that a blaster rifle was only of marginal use against a  1,500-kilo
monster crazed by an overload of stress hormones. They  also  discovered  that
limbs powerful enough to uproot small trees were easily capable of  pulling  a
man's legs off, and that jaws that could dent armor plate could, with a single
chomp, make such a bloody  mush  of  a  man's  head  that  one  couldn't  tell
fragments of his helmet from fragments of his skull.
     The regulars had better luck with  their  rocket-propelled  fragmentation
grenades. Fired from point-blank range, one of these grenades could  penetrate
a grassers torso, and its detonation inside would make a satisfyingly shredded
hash of that particular grasser. And  with  five  GAVs  at  hand-though  their
turret guns could not traverse swiftly enough to track the leaping,  twisting,
sprinting grassers, a steady  burst  from  one  of  their  high-velocity  slug
repeaters was usually enough to drop a grasser in its tracks-the militia would
have survived the grasser stampede with only an acceptable number of losses.
     Would have, that is, if the grassers had not been followed by  dozens  of
akk dogs.
     Where the grassers had been panicked, acting at random,  trying  only  to
survive and escape, the akk dogs pounced like the pack-hunting predators  they
were: organized, intelligent, and lethal.  They  bounded  among  the  militia,
shredding men with their clashing teeth and breaking them with swipes of their
tails. Their keen senses could often tell in an instant if a  downed  man  was
incapacitated or only faking; those soldiers who tried to play dead were  soon
no longer playing.
     The slug repeaters of the GAVs were useless against  the  aides'  armored
hide, and their turret guns were of even less use against the agile akks  than
they'd been against the blundering grassers. The  infantry  had  nothing  that
could scratch them; they  began  to  scatter,  triggering  the  akks'  herding
instincts. The akks overleaped them and slaughtered the leaders,  sending  the
rest retreating in disorder to the killing ground at the tunnel's mouth.
     The militia unit commander, who from his post in the turret of a GAV  had
seen his dream of victory morph into a nightmarish massacre in less  than  two
minutes, did the only thing he could do.
     He called in an airstrike.
     The gunships in  action  at  the  Lorshan  Pass  were  still  engaged  in
shuttling soldiers from the embarkation point at Oran Mas. When they  received
the unit commander's call, at least one  third  were  already  headed  in  the
direction of the pass. The Sienar Turbostorm was not by any means a fast ship-
it could barely reach point-five past sound speed in  a  steep  dive-but  only
seconds later the sky over the pass cracked open with two dozen  sonic  booms.
The gunships shed velocity  by  heeling  over  and  using  their  repulsorlift
engines like retrothrusters. Their troop bays swung  open,  disgorging  twenty
arpitroops at a belch, then the gunships righted themselves and  swooped  upon
the battlefield, spraying missiles from their forward batteries.
     The missiles ripped into the battlefield indiscriminately, crushing  akks
but also shredding the soldiers they fought. The akks' only de  fense  against
concussion missiles was evasive action, and they  scattered  into  the  trees.
Seeing a chance for a daring stroke, the unit commander ordered  a  charge  by
his five GAVs: they would drive right up the tunnel ahead with his own in  the
lead, crushing grassers and knocking aside akk dogs. More heavily armored than
the gun-ships above, he felt they had little to fear-a feeling  which  he  had
less than one second to regret as a pair of proton torpedoes streaked from the
tunnel's mouth and blew his GAV to scrap.
     At this point, finally, the partisans deployed their one and  only  piece
of mobile artillery: Twelve metric tons of ankkox lumbered from the  mouth  of
the tunnel.
     The drover who stood on its armored  head  was  a  Korun  as  tall  as  a
Wookiee, with shoulders like a rancor's and a pair  of  ultrachrome  teardrops
fastened to his forearms.
     The Korun gestured, and the twisted pile of smoking scrap that  had  been
the unit commander's GAV squealed as it flattened beneath the ankkox's massive
feet. He swung one arm, and the ankkox's tail mace blurred  through  the  air,
knocking the turret gun of the next GAV spinning so that its point-blank  shot
instead detonated against the armor of the one behind.
     Two pairs of Korunnai, nearly as large as the  one  on  the  ankkox,  and
similarly armed, crouched on either curving flank of the beast's dorsal shell;
one of each pair wore the bulky, unwieldy shoulder unit of  a  proton  torpedo
launcher, while the other tended their supply of disposable loader tubes. They
had four apiece, and they seemed to  have  no  interest  in  conserving  them.
Torpedo after torpedo  streaked  from  the  launchers,  first  destroying  the
remaining GAVs, then curving upward to blast gunships from the sky.
     A few heroic soldiers of the militia tried to scramble  close  enough  to
the ankkox to attack the Akk Guards with small arms, only to be sent  spinning
through the air, chests crushed with blinding efficiency by blurred  blows  of
the ankkox's tail mace.
     At the crest of the ankkox's dorsal shell, where once had stood a  howdah
of polished lammas, a heavy repeating blaster had been bolted directly to  the
beast's armor. Its power generator was tended by a young Korun male with vivid
blue eyes and a manic grin, and it roared a continuous  song  of  destruction,
spraying high-energy particle beam packets across the field of battle.
     The gunner on this weapon was a Korun girl with pale skin  and  startling
red hair, whose feel for the weapon was such that she could be  seen  to  fire
with her eyes closed, unerringly hammering the cockpits and cannon turrets  of
even those gunships that screamed past on transsonic strafing runs.  Streaking
concussion missiles were met tens of meters away with bursts  of  blasterfire;
not one got through.
     Nor could the gunships stand off and pound her in a laserfire  duel;  not
only did her every shot rock their ships, spoiling their target locks, but she
was defended by a Korun man and a Chalactan  woman  who  handled  Jedi  energy
blades as though they'd been born with them in hand.
     Two gunships that tried to attack went down in flames.
     Others peeled away, swinging around to take cover behind shoulders of the
mountain. An instant later, three gunships appeared in formation  straight  up
the mountain's face, diving, but firing repulsors to slow their  dive  to  not
much faster than a man might run. Ventral  doors  retracted  to  expose  their
belly-mounted Sunfire flame projectors.
     A wave of unstoppable fire swept down.
     The Jadthu-class landing craft carried by the Halleck were modified Incom
shuttles not unlike the ones that ferry passengers to and from the liners that
ply  the  Gevarno  Loop.  With  reclining  chairs  replaced  by  benches,  and
transparisteel by armor plate, each was capable of carrying up to sixty  fully
outfitted troopers. Roughly box shaped, they were rear loading, so  that  they
could be packed in a solid block, four ships by five, and socketed  against  a
cruiser's hull, facing outward.
     A simple design, they were  easy  and  inexpensive  to  build,  and  were
convenient to transport. Heavily armored, they were also capable of  absorbing
incredible punishment.
     This was a good thing, because they lacked hyperdrives, and they paid for
their durability with  a  maneuverability  quotient  that  had  been  compared
unfavorably to a Hutt on an oil slick.
     Their only armament was a pair of dual-laser turrets fore and aft, and an
Arkayd Caltrop 5 chaff gun, which could spray  a  cloud  of  sensor-distorting
durasteel slivers in any direction. Gunners on the landers had  discovered  in
their very first engagement that at the  speeds  of  starfighter  combat,  the
chaff sprayed by the Caltrop 5 was itself a highly effective  weapon:  like  a
miniature asteroid field, it would disastrously perforate any craft unwise  or
unlucky  enough  to  fly  through  it,  especially  droid  starfighters  which
sacrificed armor for greater maneuverability, depending on energy shields  for
defense-which would not, of course, do them any good at all against chaff.
     When the Halleck-fully engaged and heavily damaged by the clouds of droid
starfighters that whirled around it-blew the docking clamps and  streaked  for
hyperspace, there were nineteen landers, bearing a total of 977 clone  troops,
including pilots and gunners.
     These landers had no fighter cover: the  Halleck's   fighter  escort  had
been destroyed in the first minutes of  the  engagement.  Their  sole  defense
beyond their own guns were five Rothana HR LAAT'I  gun-ships. These  had  been
detailed to the mission as antipersonnel cover for the landers, should they be
forced to make a pickup in a hostile-fire zone. While these gunships had  been
retrofitted with sublight drives for orbital use, the LAAT,'I had  never  been
intended to dogfight against the electronic reflexes of droid starfighters.
     They were, however, manned by clone troopers,  whose  reflexes  were  not
much slower. Which is why sixteen of the landers and  three  of  the  gunships
reached the atmosphere.
     One full wing of droid starfighters-sixty-four units-followed them in.
     Fourteen landers reached the Korunnal Highland.  Pursued  by  fifty-eight
starfighters.
     None of the gunships survived.
     By the time they were within sight of the Lorshan Pass there were  twelve
landers, of which five were heavily damaged. Forty starfighters  trailed  them
with relentless electronic persistence.
     And streaking across the curve of the horizon in front of them came three
more wings of starfighters, on course to intercept.
     The trio of gunships ignited the mountainside. A  wall  of  flame  rolled
downslope toward the battlefield at the tunnel mouth.
     Militia regulars fled in all directions, slipping on blood  and  skidding
through shreds of trees and  grasser  flesh.  Wounded  grassers  screamed  and
thrashed, akk dogs snarled and leaped and bit, and the ankkox opened its  huge
armored throat to unleash a roar that knocked loose  rock  down  the  mountain
above. Several of the regulars tried to dive  for  cover  under  the  ankkox's
shell, only to be smashed to sprays of pulp by the ankkox's tail mace.
     At the crest of the dorsal shell, Chalk growled a  continuous  stream  of
curses as she struggled to swing the heavy repeater's barrel in a direction it
had never been designed to  point:  nearly  straight  up.  From  his  position
tending the EWHB's fusion generator,  Nick  looked  at  Mace  and  pointed  an
accusing finger up at the incinerating flood washing down upon them. "Was this
part of yonr plan?"
     'Of course." Mace tucked his lightsaber back into its holster and  looked
up, measuring the approach of the gunships. "Everyone down!" he shouted. "Take
cover under the shell!"
     Depa threw herself forward over the ankkox's crown shell, flipping in the
air to land beside the creature's immense head, one hand on the  nostril  flap
beside its mouth, on the  opposite  side  from  Kar  Vaster.  The  Akk  Guards
abandoned their expended torpedo launchers and slid down the shell's curve  to
leap from its rim. Nick said, "This is the part you didn't want  to  tell  me,
huh?"
     Mace said, "Help Chalk."
     Chalk was still struggling with the heavy repeater,  lying  on  her  back
with her legs beneath the tripod; Nick had to pry her hands off  it  and  drag
her free. "Can I just say I hate your plans? All of them. How did  you  figure
this was a good idea?"
     Mace nodded to Kar, and the ankkox's  tail  swung  over  its  back;  Mace
grabbed it with both hands, just below the huge knot  of  armor  at  its  end.
"Because if I'd tried this during those transsonic  strafing  runs,"  he  said
calmly, "all that would have been left of me is a red smear on a windscreen."
     At the Force command of Kar Vaster, the ankkox snapped its  tail  into  a
wide whirl, yanking Mace into the air and spinning him once around  the  outer
rim of its shell to get the feel for his added weight. Then with  a  whipcrack
that blurred the world, it fired him straight up the side of the  mountain  as
though he'd been shot from a torpedo launcher.
     Hurtling into the path of the descending gunships, Mace  reached  through
the Force to seize the support  strut  that  divided  the  windscreen  of  the
gunship in the middle, and pulled. He twisted in the air, whirling  through  a
whistling arc, and reeled himself in as though he were on a towline. His boots
thumped solidly to either side of the strut and stuck there, cemented  by  the
Force, facing forward and looking down between the toes of his  boots  at  the
twin dumbstruck gapes of the gunship's pilot and its navigator.
     The  navigator  just  stared,  unable  to  comprehend  this  inexplicable
apparition. The pilot had better reflexes: The gunship lurched as he  released
the control yoke and clawed at his sidearm, clearly prepared to sell  his  own
life and the lives of his crew for one shot at the  Jedi  Master  through  the
hole the pilot assumed Mace's lightsaber was about to slice in the windscreen.
     But Mace only shook his head as though mildly disappointed. He waggled an
admonitory finger, as though they were schoolboys  caught  playing  a  naughty
game.
     The puzzlement this inflicted upon them was cleared up when they heard  a
pair of crisp clicks, which were the sounds of  the  safety  levers  of  their
seat-ejectors flipping to "armed." They had barely  enough  time  to  register
what was happening-not nearly enough time to react-as the activator plates  on
both seats pressed themselves, and explosive  bolts  blew  the  transparisteel
windscreen up and out a millisecond before their helmets would  have  done  it
for them.
     Mace caught the barest flashing glimpse of the identically outraged looks
on their faces as the repulsorlift pods on their ejection
     rmi intvv oiuvcn
     chairs shot them spinning  out  over  the  jungle.  One  of  them  howled
something obscene. The other just howled.
     Mace kicked off from the rim of the  roof  and  dropped  into  the  empty
cockpit. A gesture  toward  the  nav  console  deactivated  the  belly-mounted
Sunfire flame projector. A similar gesture toward the pilot's console  engaged
the soft-touchdown failsafe on the autopilot, then he opened the cockpit  door
and walked calmly into the troop bay.
     The bay was littered with leaves and mud and food wrappers,  as  well  as
bits and pieces of miscellaneous equipment forgotten or discarded by  departed
militia regulars. The access hatches to the port and  starboard  ball  turrets
were directly across from each other in  front  of  the  turbine  mounts,  two
thirds of the way aft.
     Mace passed between them, then turned and folded his arms.
     He could hear, faintly through the sealed hatches,  the  honking  of  the
ejection-alert klaxon, and he didn't need to touch the Force to  mentally  see
the gunners in either turret frantically unbuckling  the  safety  straps  that
secured them to the turrets' fighting chairs. The manual dogs on  the  hatches
clacked sharply, but the desperate gunners found  both  hatches  unaccountably
jammed until they started putting their whole  weight  behind  slamming  their
shoulders into them.
     Which is when Mace's Force-hold went from keeping them  shut  to  yanking
them open, so that the two  gunners  practically  flew  into  the  troop  bay,
collided helmet-to-helmet with a gunshot crack! and collapsed.  One  of  them,
tougher than his counterpart, held on to consciousness, struggling dazedly  to
find his feet until Mace's foot found him.
     To be precise: Until the toe of Mace's boot found, crisply, the point  of
the gunner's chin.
     The unconscious man fell on top of the other gunner. Mace took two  short
lengths of scrap wire from the litter on  the  floor  and  bound  their  hands
thumb-to-thumb, then unhurriedly stepped over them  and  walked  back  to  the
cockpit just as the gunship settled on the broad corpse-littered killing  zone
about ten meters in front of the ankkox.
     Outside, the other two gunships from  the  flight  were  heeling  around,
turrets sparking as their laser cannons  tracked  toward  him.  Depa  and  Kar
crouched in front of the head of the ankkox, battering away a flood of blaster
fire; Chalk and Nick lay flat in the shadow of one  of  the  ankkox's  massive
side-curved legs, returning fire with chattering assault rifles.
     Mace hit the release for the troop bay doors, and as they fell  open,  he
poked his head out the hole left by the missing windscreen.  When  the  others
saw him, their mouths fell about as far open as the doors.
     'What are you waiting for?" Mace's deadpan was flawless. "Flowers  and  a
box of candy?"
     Depa sprang into the open, blade  flashing  faster  than  the  eye  could
follow, making herself a standing target to draw fire that she  splashed  back
at their attackers while the others scrambled to  their  feet.  Nick  sprinted
past her, assault rifle chattering from the hip. Kar dived  under  the  ankkox
and rolled up and ran with Chalk cradled like a child  in  his  massive  arms.
Fire from the surrounding trees  tracked  away  from  Depa,  clawing  for  the
bounding lor pelek.
     Mace frowned. "That's about enough of that" he  muttered  as  he  reached
into the Force to flip a bank of switches and key an initiation sequence  that
ganged the targeting servomotors for the ball turrets through the nav console,
and gave him fire control.
     Twin Taim & Bak quad laser cannons roared to life, hammering thunder into
the jungle. Trees exploded like bombs, filling the air with a cloud of  flying
splinters and wood dust that made an impromptu smoke screen to cover  Kar  and
Chalk's run to the gunship with Depa sprinting hard behind them.
     Nick appeared in the cockpit door behind Mace. "We're in!"
     'Good. The gunners?"
     'The tied-up guys?" The younger man shrugged. "They're out."
     Mace nodded. "Hang on."
     This was the only warning they got before the gunship leaped straight up,
rising like a volcano bomb on screaming overdriven re-pulsorlifts.  Cannonfire
from the other two gunships blasted the ground where it had been  and  tracked
upward to pound the gunship sideways, dents popping up like boils in the  side
armor.
     Mace slewed the gunship through a rising turn, but  the  other  gun-ships
had him bracketed, closing in from either side. Through the  roar  of  impacts
and shrieking near-misses, he heard Nick shouting, "The door! Close the doori"
     He twisted to look over his shoulder. He saw Depa  on  her  feet  in  the
middle of the troop bay, swaying, eyes squeezed shut as though the battle  had
brought on one of her headaches. Nick huddled in the doorway, arms around  his
head; Kar had Chalk tucked into a corner, and he crouched  in  front  of  her,
shields raised to catch stray bolts that shot in through the open bay door and
zinged in hot splintering ricochets around the compartment.
     Mace said, "Depa."
     Her eyes opened.
     His lightsaber leaped from its pocket within his vest and shot toward her
like a bullet.
     Her empty hand met it in midair; her pain-glazed eyes lost focus. He felt
her in the Force: a sinking surrender like an exhausted swimmer drowning in  a
rising tide.
     Slipping into Vaapad.
     Eyes closed once more, she gave one slight nod.
     Mace keyed a sequence on the pilot console. The open  door  stayed  open.
The troop door on the opposite side dropped open as well.
     Particle beams streaked into the troop bay.
     Both blades flashed.
     The gunships outside bucked under the impact of their own cannonfire.  On
one, a turbojet engine blasted loose of its mount and tumbled  away,  bouncing
down the mountainside trailing smoke and white-hot shreds of its cowling,  and
the gunship spun half out of control. The other gunship took its cannon blasts
directly in the cockpit.
     The transparisteel windscreen of a Sienar Turbostorm was thick  and  very
durable; most kinds of shrapnel or fragments wouldn't scratch it. Even  heavy-
caliber bullets would leave only dents. A quad laser bolt could make  a  hole.
One did.
     The next five went through that hole.
     The gunship spiralled into the  jungle,  its  cockpit  full  of  shredded
flesh.
     Depa opened her eyes.
     They smoked with darkness.




     SHIP TO SHIP



     Muscle bunched along Mace's jaw as he forced  himself  to  turn away  and
focus on his flying. A glance at the short-range sensors showed  him  gunships
all  over  the  place:  the  computer  counted  fifty-three  in  the  zone  of
engagement, with more curving toward them over the horizon. He keyed the troop
bay doors shut and cut in the turbojets. "Nick. Take nav."
     'Sure. Er-yes, sir." Nick glanced at the empty sockets left behind by the
ejected chairs. "Urn... where do I sit?"
     'Monitor sensors. We should be seeing the HallecKs  landers  any  second.
Kar! Chalk! The emergency repulsor-packs are next to the turret  hatches.  You
have thirty seconds."
     Nick wedged his feet under the chair-socket struts and  gripped  the  nav
console's split-yoke controls, squinting  against  the  stiffening  wind  that
whistled through the empty gap in front of him.  The  gun-ship's  aerodynamics
shaped the wind blast past the cockpit  instead  of  into  it,  but  even  the
minimal back-eddy leakage was enough to stagger him. His eyes  lit  up  as  he
took in the array of screens on the console-especially the twin  screens  with
targeting reticules displayed at their centers.
     'Hey, what's this do?" He twisted the split-yoke in opposite  directions,
and the images on the screens spun wildly to match.
     'Don't touch those."
     Nick hit the thumb switches on both controllers. The screens filled  with
parallel bursts of cannonfire as the quad lasers roared. "Yow!  Fire  control?
For me} Oh, General, you shouldn't have!"
     'I realize that."
     'It's not even my name-day..."
     'Nick."
     'Yeah, I know: sensors."
     'And-"
     '-shut up, Nick. Yeah, whatever. Hrr." The wind whipped wisps of  breath-
fog from his mouth. "Starting to get cold in here. Out here. Are we inside  or
outside?"
     'We're approaching seven thousand meters. Check those sensors:  red  hits
are friendlies, blue are hostiles."
     'Well, shee," Nick said. "What are you so worried  about,  then?  There's
like fifty-some friendlies already here, and another hundred and ninety-two on
the way-I mean, they're like everywhere-and there are only thirteen  hostiles,
and the friendlies are all over them-whoa. Now there are twelve... oh, wait. I
get it. Whoops."
     'Whoops is one word for it."
     'Sorry. I'm a little dopey."
     'Yes."
     'Uh-there's a flight of o't'tx friendlies trying right now to  climb  our
butts-whoa, what's that?" A lock-on alert flashed; the accompanying buzzer was
half-buried in the wind noise. "They lit us up! Missiles incoming! Six  count,
closing, dead astern!"
     'Back-trace the missile lock and feed it to the  computers  for  counter-
fire."
     'Great idea! I'll get right on that,'rtf thing as soon as I graduate from
gunnery school"
     'Fine then," Mace said through his teeth. "You said you can shoot.  Let's
see it."
     'Woo-hoo! Now you're talking? The  ball-turrets  rotated  and  the  quads
blazed to life; the gunship was now climbing straight up, shrieking for  space
like the starship it once had been. "Yes indeed! Come and get it!" One of  the
missiles intersected a stream of cannon bolts and  detonated  in  a  burst  of
black smoke and white fire. "How was that?
     'Not bad," Mace said. "Try not to shoot our tail off."
     'Some people are never satisfied-"
     'Nick. The other five."
     'Yeah, yeah. If you wanna be that way about it-" He  flipped  the  arming
levers  on  all  four  aft  missile-tubes.  "Onetwothree,'owr!"  he   shouted,
triggering them in order, and the gunship bucked as a staggered flight of four
concussion missiles kicked to life and spun twisting white  ropes  of  rocket-
smoke down to meet the five missiles behind.
     The first impact-burst drew the next missile,  and  the  next,  expanding
into an immense fireball fed by all nine.
     'Shee," Nick snorted disgustedly. "That was hardly any fun at all."
     'It's not supposed to be fun. Save those missiles."
     'What for?"
     'Depa!" Mace called, shouting over the wind shriek. "Are you ready?"
     She appeared in the doorway, leaning on it  for  support  as  though  the
gunship's artificial gravity were too strong  for  her.  "Ready  enough,"  she
said. "I can fight. I can always fight. Take your blade."
     Mace shook his head. "You'll need it," he said, and cut all power to  the
gunship's engines.
     Its momentum kept it climbing, but  slowing  now  with  a  lazy  twisting
barrel-roll as the pursuing ships shot past. It hung poised at its apex for  a
stretching instant.
     The pursuers peeled away from each other in  matching  ellipses,  two  of
them curving down to dive toward them once again while the third held back for
high cover.
     Mace worked the controls grimly to hold  the  ship  nose-up  as  it  slid
backward toward the ground. "Right or left?"
     Depa said, "Left," and then she dived straight up into  the  sky  through
the cockpit's open front, tucking into a ball to tumble  through  the  falling
gunship's slipstream turbulence.
     'Yow!" Nick said. "Why doesn't somebody warn me about this stuff?"
     'Lock cannons on the right-hand ship. Continuous fire. No missiles."
     'I'm on it." The right side quad turret tracked briefly,  then  roared  a
chain of energy into the clouds.
     Mace twisted the control yoke to angle the falling gunship's nose to  the
right so that the portside turret could join  the  fun,  then  re-ignited  the
repulsorlifts at full power and kicked on the turbojets'  afterburners.  "Hang
on."
     'I'm on that too."
     The ship jounced and fought the controls, and the gunship  diving  toward
it suddenly bloomed with fire  that  pounded  them  like  giant  particle-beam
fists. Mace got a glimpse of Depa, straightening her  tumble  into  feet-first
plummet with both lightsabers naming at full extension above her head.
     Mace slammed the control yoke sideways and the gunship  shrieked  into  a
rising corkscrew that lit up stress-warning indicators all over  his  console;
it got them out from under  the  rain  of  cannon-fire,  but  their  targeting
computers couldn't process the constantly changing vectors, and their own fire
went wild as well. Nick looked over the indicators and  his  eyes  went  huge.
"Hey, is this bucket designed to do this?"
     'I hope not," Mace said through his teeth as he fought the controls. "Put
fire back on that ship."
     'Who, me? The computer's not fast enough-"
     'The computer," said Mace, "can't use the Force."
     'Uh, yeah. Okay. Sure."
     Just before he overtook them, Mace saw  the  left-hand  gunship  spearing
downward against the thrust  of  reversed  engines,  twisting  into  a  spiral
evasive action to avoid colliding with Depa-
     And he felt the surge in the Force that drove her directly into its path.
     Her blades took it  just  below  the  windscreen  and  drove  in  to  the
handgrips, and the rushing airstream around the  gunship's  nose  flipped  her
over and whipped her up across the cockpit, dragging her  blades  through  the
transparisteel to slice free a huge gaping arc.
     'Woo!" Nick shouted from beside him. "Love them easy-openin'
     cans:
     'Kar! Chalk! Time to go!"
     The Korun girl climbed into the cockpit between Mace and Nick; she looked
pale and in pain, but still fierce. The lorpelek  shouldered  in  behind  her.
They both wore emergency repulsor-packs strapped across their backs. "You know
how these work?"
     Chalk nodded silently in reply; Vaster slapped  the  graphic  instruction
card sewn onto his harness and snarled at him.,' can read.
     'Urn, are we bailing out?" Nick said. "Because, y'know,  somebody  forgot
to get me one of those-"
     'Nick."
     'What?"
     'Shoot."
     'Right. Right. Sorry. Here, watch this." Nick  let  the  port  turret  go
silent, while the starboard quad clawed at the militia ship; the battered ship
jinked aside to evade the pounding-directly into a stream of fresh  fire  from
the port turret. "See? That's shooting-"
     'With real shooting," Chalk told him, "wouldn't be shooting back, him."
     'Shee. What does it take to please you people?"
     Mace nodded to Vaster and Chalk. "Ready?"
     Without waiting for an answer he cut power to the turbojets  and  flicked
the repulsorlifts into reverse; overstressed metal squealed in  the  gunship's
every joint as it blasted down toward stall speed. Mace wrenched the yoke  and
flipped the gunship upside down. Kar Vaster wrapped  one  arm  around  Chalk's
shoulders and with the other grabbed the empty rim of the windscreen gap, then
pulled them both smoothly out onto the roof. With one explosive kick to  clear
the gunship's artificial gravity, he and Chalk fell away, tumbling toward  the
jungle thousands of meters below.
     'On second thought," Nick said, "I guess I don't mind  staying  with  the
ship..."
     Hammers pounded the gunship into a bucking spin as the militia ship  that
had stayed back on high cover finally joined the dogfight, and  the  one  they
had left behind rose beneath them. Mace worked the controls savagely, whirling
the gunship through evasive gyrations more suitable for a starfighter than for
an antique blastboat; the port turbojet took  a  pair  of  cannon-blasts,  and
Mace's next whirl proved too much for its damaged mounting. It tore free in  a
scream of tortured metal. The ship roared through an uncontrolled spin.
     'Take it easy!" Nick shouted.
     Mace muttered, "I don't do easy"
     'What?"
     'I said, shoot back?
     'How? I can't even see them!"
     'You don't have to," Mace said as he pulled  the  crippled  gunship  into
another corkscrew climb, trailing smoke and shredded durasteel. "Forget  about
aiming. Just decide"
     'Decide what?
     Mace reached into the Force and sent a wave of calm down  his  connection
with Nick. "Don't aim," he said. "Decide what you want to hit. Fire where  you
know it is about to be!'
     Nick frowned thoughtfully. He turned deliberately away from his  screens,
and looked Mace in the eye. Bemusedly, absently, casually, he nodded,  sighed,
and triggered the gunship's cannons.
     He was still wearing that same thoughtful frown when  his  cannon  blasts
shattered the starboard turret of the gunship below, then penetrated the inner
hatch and blew the ship in half.
     He said, "Wow." His calm vanished as quickly as it  had  come.  "I  mean,
wowl Did you see that?"
     Mace kicked the limping gunship out of its climb and into a steep  power-
dive away from the last one. Slowed by their missing  turbojet,  they  swiftly
lost their lead as it dived to pursue them, and cannonfire raked their  stern.
Mace worked the repulsorlifts madly, making the ship jerk, leap, and spring in
random directions like a monkey-lizard on raw thyssel. Fire from above pounded
them, but Mace's wild maneuvers were preventing it from laying in the multiple
precision hits needed to blast through the Turbostorm's heavy armor.
     The lock-on alert screamed, and Nick's voice almost matched it. "Missiles
incoming!"
     Mace didn't even bother to look. "Take care of them."
     The perfect confidence in his tone steadied Nick  instantly.  He  flashed
his brilliant grin. "Don't mind if I do..."
     As the turrets rotated to the rear and roared back to life, Mace  scanned
the jungle toward which his limping ship dived. It was hard to get a sense  of
scale-he might have been only hundreds of meters above it, or as  many  dozens
of kilometers. Then the swarming  gun-metal  specks  of  the  balance  of  the
militia  fleet  that  swarmed  above  the  canopy  snapped  the   scene   into
perspective.
     There-a thousand meters below, maybe more, the distress  strobes  flashed
on the repulsor-packs that Kar and Chalk wore. A single gun-ship  streaked  to
intercept them, then slowed. And stopped, hovering.
     And the minuscule figures of Chalk and Kar landed lightly on its roof.
     A moment later its nose came up, angling straight for him. Mace nodded to
himself and let the Force guide his  dive  into  an  interception  course.  He
checked his screens. "Missiles?"
     'Handled." Nick's tone was so like the Jedi Master's that it  might  have
been deliberate mockery.
     Mace didn't mind. "There won't be more. He won't endanger that friend  of
his coming at us."
     'Urn, shouldn't we endanger that friend of his?"
     'No need."
     'How come?"
     'That's not his friend."
     Turret quads on the rising gunship blazed to  life,  and  Mace  gave  the
repulsorlifts a kick that jerked the Turbostorm a dozen meters above the  line
of dive so that the twin streams of particle-beam  packets  passed  harmlessly
beneath him to take the pursuing gunship full in the cockpit.
     The explosion was impressive.
     The rear two-thirds of the gunship trailed smoke on its way down  to  the
jungle. The front third was the smoke the rear two-thirds trailed.
     'That," said Mace Windu, "was shooting."
     Nick made a face. "Oh, sure. Chalk. I told you she can handle  the  heavy
stuff. But you should see her in a gun fight. Pathetic. Just pathetic."
     'Get Depa's transponder code off your widescan, then get her on comm.  We
need to coordinate our next move."
     'I'm just glad to hear you have a next move."
     'How many friendlies do you count?"
     'Scan count on the droid starfighters... Woo. Sure  you  really  want  to
know?"
     'Nick."
     'Two hundred twenty-eight."
     'Good."
     'Good? Good?
     'To the lower left of your widescan, you'll find a joystick the  size  of
your  thumb.  That's  your  designator  control.   Start   designating   droid
starfighters as targets for our missiles. One missile  per  star-fighter,  and
don't save any. Do not-repeat: DO NOT-light them up until I  give  the  order.
And do not designate anything other than a droid starfighter."
     'Not even, say,  one  of  those  sixty-seven  gunships  in  our  zone  of
engagement?" Nick pointed to the swarm of "friendlies" in a different part  of
the screen. "Because they seem to be taking a little interest in  us,  if  you
know what I mean. They are coming at us. In a hurry."
     'Sixty-seven? How many are on intercept vectors?"
     'Was I not clear on that? Maybe I should have said: By the  way,  have  I
mentioned that we're about to get our butts shot off?"
     'How many?"
     Nick gave a weak, half-hysterical giggle. "All of them."
     Mace Windu said, "Perfect."



     The regimental commander was designated CRC-09,'571. Haruun Kal  was  his
third action in combat, and his first as regimental commander. At Geonosis, he
had taken part as a battalion commander in the airborne  infantry;  his  group
had led the frontal assault on the Trade  Federation  battle  globes.  He  had
served, again as battalion commander, at the disastrous skirmish on  Teyr.  On
board the
     Halleck, as the days awaiting  action  stretched  toward  weeks,  he  had
drilled his  brother  troopers  relentlessly,  sharpening  their  considerable
skills to the highest perfection that could be achieved, absent  blooding  his
regiment in actual combat.
     There had been  blooding  enough  today,  as  a  hornet  cloud  of  droid
starfighters swirled around his tiny fleet.
     He had watched a third of his regiment die.
     Some of the landers had been disabled rather  than  instantly  destroyed,
and they had been able to eject  survivors:  meteor  swarms  of  space-armored
troopers floating into low orbit, repulsorpacks sparking as  they  slowed  and
angled their minutes-long fall toward Haruun Kal's atmosphere.  The  surviving
landers had not been able to keep all the droid  starfighters  engaged;  there
were plenty of starfighters left over to slaughter the men, as well.
     They had flashed among the falling troopers with cannons blasting: silent
streaks of scarlet lancing the black void with  robotic  precision,  each  hit
leaving a broken corpse floating in  the  middle  of  an  expanding  globe  of
twinkling crystals, white and pink and blue-green: breath and blood  and  body
fluids flash-frozen in the vacuum, shimmering and lovely in Al'har's light.
     But the other troopers had not panicked; with  polished  fire  discipline
and plain raw courage, the falling troopers had turned upon  the  starfighters
the weapons they carried upon  their  persons,  coordinating  their  fire  for
greater effect. Three light repeaters, when turned upon the same  starfighter,
could break down its shields so that a single shot from a blaster rifle  might
disable an engine;  groups  of  grenadiers  scattered  proximity-fused  proton
grenades in improvised mini-minefields; and when their weapons were exhausted,
in desperation, men used their  own  bodies  as  weapons,  manipulating  their
repulsorpacks to shove themselves into the path of starfighters whipping  past
at dogfight speeds. In such collisions, neither could hope to survive.
     The troopers had not been fighting to defend themselves; they knew  their
lives were over. But they had never stopped.
     They were fighting for the regiment.
     Every starfighter they took down was one less  that  might  attack  their
brothers. CRC-09,'571 was not particularly emotional, even for a clone, but he
had watched their sacrifice with a hot swell in his chest. Men such  as  those
made him proud to be one of them. His only drive was to  discharge  his  duty;
but he also nursed a secret desire to do something, to achieve something, that
would be worthy of his men's astonishing heroism.
     To hit back.
     Which is why he felt a sting in his guts-what an ordinary man might  call
anger  and  frustration,  but  which  CRC-09,'571  only  barely  noticed,  and
immediately dismissed-when his comm lit up with orders from General Windu.
     Orders that his ships were to immediately cease fire.
     Cease fire despite close pursuit by DSFs.
     Despite three additional droid  starfighter  wings-192  units-closing  on
them from beyond the planetary horizon.
     Despite sixty-nine Sienar  Turbostorm  gunships  streaking  up  from  the
surface to intercept them.
     His anger and frustration showed only in a certain hopeful tone  when  he
demanded  General  Windu's  verification  code-perhaps  this  was  an   enemy,
impersonating the general-and in the slight reluctance  he  felt  to  confirm,
when the general's code came through correct.
     General Windu, as far as CRC-09,'571 could determine,  was  ordering  the
clones to die. But CRC-09,'571 could no more disobey a lawful  order  than  he
could walk through armor plate.
     As they hurtled down from the stratosphere above the  Korunnal  Highland,
the guns on all the Republic ships fell silent.
     Droid starfighters swarmed over them, weapons blazing.
     As his lander was pounded from all sides by multiple cannon hits, CRC-09,
'571 noticed an odd thing on his command-scan screen:  some  of  the  gunships
below seemed to be firing on other gunships.
     To be precise: sixty-seven of the gunships below seemed to be  firing  on
the two that were in the lead.
     These two did not return fire. They streaked at full  power  in  a  steep
climb, scissoring side-to-side, heading straight for the mass dogfight so that
the cannonfire which missed them-nearly all  of  it-blasted  upward  into  the
cloud of DSFs. Most of it passed harmlessly  through,  of  course,  not  being
aimed at the small agile craft, but several DSFs  took  blasts  squarely,  and
exploded.
     CRC-09,'571 frowned. He had a good feeling about this.



     Not far below, in the open cockpit of one of the two gunships  that  were
the targets of those behind, Mace Windu said, "All right, Nick. Light them up.
"
     'Yes, sir!"
     Nick Rostu flipped a single switch, and the droid  brains  of  twenty-six
different droid starfighters-one for each of the  missiles  remaining  in  the
Turbostorm's  launchers-felt  the  sudden  internal  alarm-buzz   of   sensors
detecting a missile lock.
     Coming from a friendly ship.
     The droid brains found this puzzling, but not  overly  distressing;  they
were still focused on their primary mission, which was to destroy any and  all
Republic craft attempting to orbit or  land  on  Haruun  Kal.  But  they  were
programmed to monitor possible hazards, and each of them  set  some  of  their
spare capacity to searching memory banks for any response programs that  might
be indicated in the event of missile-locks from friendly craft.
     There weren't any.
     This, the droid brains did find distressing.
     And there was the issue of those laser blasts...
     Only one second later, thirty-two additional droid brains among the swarm
of starfighters had exactly the same experience.
     Because all four of the  Krupx  MG3  mini  missile  launchers  on  Depa's
gunship were fully loaded.
     As the two gunships penetrated the perimeter of the  sprawling  dogfight,
Mace said, "Fire."
     A Krupx MG3 tube could fire one missile every standard second;  each  MG3
had two tubes, which carried  magazines  of  four  mini-missiles  apiece.  The
Sienar Turbostorm close-assault gunship had four Krupx MG3s: two  forward  and
two aft. On Mace's command, both ships emptied their magazines.  The  gunships
blossomed with fire and rocket exhaust.
     Sixteen missiles per second roared twisting through the sky.
     The dogfight became a tangled web of vapor trails.
     In the gunship's open cockpit,  Nick  watched  his  widescan,  whistling.
"Wow. Those starfighters are quick."
     Mace said, "Yes."
     'Two thirds  of  our  missiles  are  gonna  miss  altogether.  No:  three
quarters. More. Damn, they're fast."
     'It doesn't matter."
     'What do you mean, it doesn't matter? It's just our  butts,  that's  all!
Not to mention those poor ruskakks in the landers."
     Mace Windu said, "Watch."
     Nick's estimate  proved  to  be  overly  optimistic:  of  the  fifty-nine
missiles fired, only six found their targets.  Three  more  were  accidentally
intercepted by DSFs which they were not locked onto. The rest  were  destroyed
by the droids' inhumanly precise counterfire, or were  simply  evaded  by  the
nimble craft; dozens flashed away into the  sky  until  their  propellant  was
exhausted and they began the long slow tumble to the surface.
     However-as Mace had pointed out, down in the battered cavern  base-droids
were stupid.
     That was not to say that they could not adapt to changing  circumstances.
They could, and did: often with a speed and decisiveness that no organic brain
could  match.  These  droids  had  comprehended  they  were  under  attack  by
"friendly" vessels before the initial flight of  sixteen  missiles  had  fully
engaged their engines. An attack from a single  friendly  vessel  might  be  a
mistake, an accident, no more. But two  vessels,  both  of  whose  transponder
codes identified as friendly, had opened fire on them in a coordinated attack.
     Without warning.
     The droids  would  not  wait  for  further  attacks.  They  adapted  with
lightning speed, and remorseless droid logic.
     And Nick Rostu, staring down into his widescan screen, didn't even notice
his own jaw dropping farther and farther as first one, then a  dozen,  then  a
hundred and more, red scan-hits changed to blue. "They're going hostile," Nick
murmured in awe.
     'Yes."
     "All of them."
     'Yes."
     Two hundred and twenty-seven  DSFs  peeled  off  from  the  landers-whose
silent guns had dropped them below the droid brains' threat  horizon-and  fell
upon the sixty-nine Turbostorms in a tornado of destruction.
     Gunships began to burn, and fall.
     'You planned this?"
     "T^l> "
     Iheres more.
     'Yeah? What do we do now?"
     A dozen starfighters converged on them.
     'Now," said Mace Windu, "we bail out."
     He took hold of Nick's belt. Nick stared at him in  open  horror.  "Don't
tell me.";
     'All right."
     A Force-pushed leap yanked them both out of the  cockpit  a  full  second
before the gunship began to crumple under hundreds of cannon-hits; two seconds
later it exploded, but by then Mace and Nick were already  fifty-eight  meters
below and gaining speed,  hurtling  without  benefit  of  repulsor-packs  down
through the dogfight's flame and smoke and airbursts.
     Nick's shriek sank unheard under the windrush and explosions.
     Mace mouthed, You told me not to tell you.
     Nick spent  much  of  the  ensuing  fall  complaining  in  a  loud-though
inaudible-voice about having to end his young life as  "some  fraggin'  niklde
nut-brained Jedi Master's straight man."
     Free-falling, one hand keeping a tight grip on Nick's belt, Mace  reached
into the Force and felt for his lightsaber.
     He found its familiar resonance far below. Nick stayed locked in a  fetal
ball, hugging his thighs to his chest  in  a  white-knuckled  death  grip  and
shouting obscenities between his knees. Though he had a  tendency  to  tumble,
his tight "cannonball" made him close enough to aerodynamically  neutral  that
Mace could direct their fall by angling his own body.
     They soared toward a target he could barely see: two kilometers below and
a quarter-klick to the west, a gunship whirled toward the  jungle  in  a  flat
spin, spewing thick black smoke. The  DSFs  were  ignoring  it,  concentrating
instead on the gunships that still fired and twisted  and  dodged  in  frantic
attempts to evade them.
     Depa was doing a fine job of appearing crippled and helpless.
     Now and again some chunks of smoking durasteel or a hunk of re-pulsorlift
would overtake Mace and Nick on their long, long fall, seeming to  drift  down
past  them  at  variously  leisurely  paces,  according  to  their  individual
quotients of wind-resistance. No bodies passed them,  though;  Mace  and  Nick
fell already at close to the terminal velocity of the human form.
     On Haruun Kal, that was slightly less than three hundred  kilometers  per
hour.
     The gunships rate of fall was considerably slower; it only looked like it
was going in out of control. Which was why, when Mace had towed Nick to within
a few hundred meters above the gunship, a considerable exertion of his  Force-
strength was required to slow them enough to avoid a catastrophic splatter.
     Nick had lifted his eyes only once, as they  plummeted  toward  the  roof
armor of the gunship: just long enough to recall vividly what  Mace  had  said
about leaving a red smear on a windscreen. His head was tucked  back  securely
between his knees when Mace brought them to a thumpingly unceremonious landing
that sent them bruised and bouncing along the top of the spinning ship.
     Mace's free hand lashed out with effortless accuracy and  latched  around
the widescan sensor dish-mount;  his  other,  still  locked  on  Nick's  belt,
brought the young Korun to a stop  facedown  over  what  was  still  nearly  a
kilometer drop to the jungle.
     'You... remember... back when we met?" Nick gasped breathlessly into  the
swirling winds. "When you... just about broke my  arm...  with  that  fraggin'
docking claw you use for a hand?
     " "Yes?" 
     "I...forgive you."
     'Thank you." Mace hauled him up onto the  gunship's  roof.  Nick  wrapped
both arms around the sensor dish mount. "You go on ahead," Nick told  him.  "I
think I'll just lie here and shudder."
     Using the Force to steady himself on the spinning ship, Mace  worked  his
way forward on hands and knees until he could peer into the cockpit  over  the
rim of the wide lightsaber-cut that opened it to the air.
     Chalk sat in nav; she looked  up  and  swore.  Vaster  stood  behind  the
cockpit chairs: his stare was cleanly fierce. Depa reached up to him from  the
pilot's chair with a warm welcoming hand on his. Her  eyes  were  glazed  with
exhaustion and pain, but no surprise. "I thought you told me I'd only have  to
save your life once more."
     He said, "Excuse me."
     He rolled onto his back and reached behind his shoulders to grab the  rim
of the cut with both hands, then jackknifed and swung himself smoothly  inside
feet-first, without waiting to see if Vaster had gotten out of the way.
     He had.
     'Nick is on the roof," Mace said. "Open one of the bay doors for him."
     The troop bay doors of a Turbostorm swing out and down so they  could  be
used as landing ramps. Depa keyed the starboard door to open  halfway,  making
it into a kind of chute down which Nick could slide, then worked the  controls
to cancel the gunship's spin.
     Mace nodded to the lorpelek, who now filled the  cockpit  doorway.  "Kar:
help him in."
     Why should I?
     Mace was not interested in debate. He gave his head  an  irritated  shake
and waved Vaster aside. "I'll do it my..."
     His voice trailed away, because Vaster had stepped aside,  and  Mace  had
moved to the doorway, and now he could see into the troop bay.
     It was crammed with dead bodies.
     Mace sagged sideways; only his shoulder against the jamb  seal  held  him
upright.
     Depa had chosen a full ship.
     His numbed brain couldn't count them properly, but he guessed there  must
have been twenty corpses in the bay: an infantry platoon. The pilot must  have
been young, excited, confident, sure of a glorious kill-so eager to  get  into
the fight that he had sailed into battle without discharging  his  passengers.
He had paid the price for that confidence; his corpse lay crumpled on  top  of
what must have been the navigator's, just inside the cockpit door.
     Mace's jaw hardened. He found his balance again, and stepped  over  their
tangled lifeless legs to move deeper into the bay.
     All of the corpses in the troop bay wore the militia Graylite body armor;
most of the armor had been burned through in  several  places  by  close-range
blaster bolts. Mace could too easily imagine inexperienced  militia  men-boys-
turning their weapons on Depa as she moved from the cockpit into the bay.  The
effect of opening fire with energy  weapons,  point-blank  upon  a  master  of
Vaapad, was mutely testified to by every charred ring  around  a  finger-sized
hole in the armor, and by the burned and lifeless flesh beneath.
     Between surprise, panic, and cramped quarters, half of them had  probably
shot each other.
     Several  of  the  bodies  bore  the  characteristic  blackened  gapes  of
lightsaber wounds, instantly cauterized by the blade  that  had  opened  them.
Depa's handling of the ball-turret gunners had been more elegant than  Mace's;
brutally efficient, she had simply stabbed directly through the  durasteel  of
the hatches, killing the men in their chairs.
     The corpses still sat there, dead hands locked around the dual  grips  of
their quads.
     And, of course, the smell: seared flesh and ozone.
     There was no blood. No blood at all.
     Every single one of these men had been dead before she'd ever  picked  up
Chalk and Kar Vaster. Twenty-four men.
     In less than a minute.
     Mace turned around,  and  found  Kar  Vastor  staring  at  him,  fiercely
triumphant.
     He growled simply: She belongs here.
     Mace silently turned away and climbed the half-open  door  to  help  Nick
into the troop bay.
     Sliding down the door into that compartment full of dead men struck  Nick
speechless. He could only crouch with his back against the slant of the  door,
trembling.
     Mace left him there. He brushed past Vastor and  reentered  the  cockpit.
"Chalk. Give me your seat."
     The Korun girl frowned at Depa. Depa nodded. "It's okay, Chalk. Do it."
     As soon as he could settle into the  seat,  he  leaned  over  the  sensor
screens, studying them intently. He felt Depa's eyes upon him, but he did  not
lift his head.
     'You can say it, if you like," she said after a moment. "I don't mind."
     Keeping  half  his  attention  on  the  widescan  to  watch   the   droid
starfighters shoot down gunship after gunship, Mace turned the other  half  of
his attention to the gunship's data logs, calling  up  flight  plans.  Control
codes.
     Recognition codes.
     'Really, Mace, it's all right," she said sadly. Half-blind with migraine,
her breath coming a little short, she blinked dizzily through the remainder of
the windscreen. "I know what you're thinking."
     Mace said quietly, "I don't believe you do."
     'It's not that my way is the right way. I know it isn't." A soft,  bitter
laugh. "I do know it. But it's the only way."
     'The only way to what?"
     'To win, Mace."
     'Is that what you call what you have done? Winning?"
     She nodded exhaustedly out toward the dogfight  that  still  raged  above
them. "This battle is a masterpiece. Even after everything  I  have  seen  you
accomplish, I could never have believed something like this if I  hadn't  seen
it myself. You have done a great thing, today."
     'Today's not over yet."
     'And yet it's all for nothing. At this day's  end,  what  will  you  have
done? Destroyed most of the militia's airpower? So what?" Her voice was  going
hoarse, and her words became labored, as though she could not bear the  effort
to push them out through her pain. "You have bought us days. Perhaps weeks. No
more. When you're gone, we'll still be here.  We'll  still  be  dying  in  the
jungle. The Balawai will get more gunships. As many as they need. And we'll go
back to killing them. We have to make them fear the jungle. Because that  fear
is our only real weapon."
     'Not today."
     'What? I-what do you mean?"
     'I have decided," Mace said, still studying the sensor screens, "that you
have been right all along."
     Depa blinked in disbelief. "I have?"
     'Yes. We used these people for our purposes; to abandon  them  now,  when
their only choice is to suffer genocide, or to commit it?" Mace shook his head
grimly. "That would be as dark as any night in this jungle. Darker. That is no
innocent savagery. It would be active evil: the way  of  the  Sith.  There  is
fighting to be done. The Jedi cannot walk away."
     'You-you're serious? You really mean it?" Disbelief struggled  with  hope
in her pain-wracked eyes. "You're going to  walk  away  from  the  Clone  War?
You're going to stay here and fight?"
     Mace shrugged, still watching the scan. "I will stay here and fight. That
doesn't mean walking away from the Clone War."
     'Mace, the Summertime War isn't something that can be resolved in  weeks-
or months-"
     'I know that," he murmured distractedly. "I don't have weeks or months to
spare. The Summertime War won't last that long."
     'What? How can you say that? How long do you think it will last?"
     'My best guess? About twelve hours. Maybe less."
     She could only stare.
     And finally, he saw on the widescan screen what he'd  been  waiting  for:
the droid starfighters peeling away from the  dogfight  and  streak  ing  back
toward space, and the handful of surviving gunships turning to limp home.
     'See that?" he said, opening his hand toward the  screen.  "Do  you  know
what that means?"
     Depa nodded. "It means that someone figured out what we did."
     'Yes-and that this someone has the control codes for those starfighters."
He turned toward her now, and in his eye was a spark that on another man would
have been a wide fierce grin. "I told you: I don't have  weeks  or  months  to
spare."
     'I don't understand-What are you doing to doT
     Mace said, "Win."


     He keyed the command frequency for the Republic landers.  "General  Windu
for CRC-09,'571. Stand by for verification and orders.  Initiate  simultaneous
data link. Tightbeam."
     The comm crackled. "Seven-One here. Go ahead, General?
     Depa was so astonished by the orders she heard Mace issue that she nearly
crashed the Turbostorm into a mountain. When  she  had  finally  wrestled  the
craft back to stability, she flipped on the autopilot  and  faced  her  former
Master breathlessly. "Are you insane!"
     'Just the opposite," Mace said. "Haven't you heard? There's nothing  more
dangerous than a Jedi who has finally gone sane."
     She sputtered like a droid with a shorted-out motivator.
     'And  if  you  don't  mind,  I'd  like  my  lightsaber  back,"  he  added
apologetically. "I think I'll need it."
     'But-but-but-" Finally the words burst out of her. "We're going  to  take
Pelek Bawl!"
     'No," said Mace Windu. "We are going to take the whole system. All of it.
Right now."


     DEJARIK


     The  ic key to the Gevarno Loop was the Al'har system. The key to  Al'har
was control of the droid starfighter fleet. The fleet was  controlled  from  a
secure transmitter below the command bunker of the Pelek Baw spaceport.
     The spaceport did have a chance. But only one.
     Two of the landers and their complements of troopers had been grounded at
the Lorshan Pass, to establish a defensive  perimeter  around  the  lone  open
grasser tunnel, and to provide light artillery support. The other  ten  hopped
over the mountains and kept going at their top atmospheric  speed,  which  was
not particularly impressive, but was still somewhat better than could be  done
by the few battered Turbostorms that were limping back to their various bases,
scattered among the larger towns close by on the Highland.
     Only one of the gunships went as far as Pelek Baw.
     It crept over Grandfather's Shoulder on one-quarter  repulsorlift  power,
leaking smoke and radiation. The tower officers at the spaceport  listened  in
horror to the pilots gasping message: a reactor breach. Imminent  catastrophic
failure. The pilot had heroically kept his craft in the air, making for  Pelek
Baw, because only the spaceport itself was fully equipped for containment  and
decontamination-to have landed anywhere else might have meant the sacrifice of
his crew, and of the infantry platoon on board...
     The news leaped like lightning from the tower to the ground  staff,  from
the anti-rad techs  to  the  bored  garrison  crews  working  the  spaceport's
Confederacy-provided array of modern turbolasers and ion cannons; this was the
most exciting thing that had  happened  since  the  Separatist  pullback.  The
battle at the Lorshan Pass had been astonishing, even tragic, but that was all
the way on the other side of the Highland, and so didn't really count.
     Every eye in the spaceport watched the Turbostorm, either in person or on
screen, rooting for it, praising the crew's selfless courage as it swung  wide
around the city so as not to endanger civilians below, some praying aloud that
they would make it, many more secretly hoping to witness a spectacular crash-
     Instead of tending to their  duties,  such  as  monitoring  their  sensor
screens.
     After all, why should they? The spaceport was linked in realtime with the
network of detector satellites in orbit around the planet; nothing was in  the
air right now except the twenty-odd surviving gunships. The last of the  droid
starnghters had returned to space hours ago, and the  Republic  landing  craft
which had caused so much excitement had vanished shortly thereafter.
     No one was worried about those landers. After the staggering  40  percent
losses they had suffered, the Republic ships  surely  would  seek  no  further
battle. Without a doubt, they were hiding  in  the  "soup"-the  thick  oceanic
swirl of toxic gases that surrounds the Highland plateau-until a cruiser could
sneak in-system to extract them. Without a doubt.
     This was a considerable display of  confidence  on  their  part,  because
those same detector satellites on which they depended were as out of  date  as
the rest of the local government's planetary equipage. Their  IR  and  visual-
light detectors were useless to penetrate the thick hot swirl of  the  "soup,"
and the satellites' more subtle sensors were defeated by  the  extremely  high
metals content  of  the  gases.  Once  the  landers  went  deep  enough,  they
effectively vanished from the face of the planet.
     Which is why any  sensor  tech  at  the  Pelek  Saw  spaceport  with  the
discipline to keep  his  eyes  on  his  short-range  screen  might  have  seen
indications of something extraordinary.
     Pelek Baw spread along the western  shore  of  the  Great  Downrush,  the
mightiest river on Haruun Kal. The Downrush was fed by tributaries from across
the Highland-from as far east as the Lorshan Pass, and as  far  north  as  the
lands above the impassable cliffs called the Trundur Wall.  By  the  time  the
great river reached the capital, it was a full kilometer  wide.  Its  dramatic
roaring spray-clouded plunge from the terminal cliffs that formed the southern
boundary of the city was one of the great natural wonders of  the  sector:  it
foamed and misted and spread as it fell kilometer after kilometer, becoming  a
snowy fan that stirred the roiling "soup" below into wild fractal  whirls  and
blooms of colorfully immiscible gases.
     What the sensor tech would have seen, had he been disciplined  and  duty-
conscious enough to still be looking into  his  short-range  screen,  was  ten
Jadthu-class Republic landers  climbing,  straight  up,  within  the  Downrush
Falls-single file, battered by the thundering  water,  but  perfectly  cloaked
from long-range detection. If the sensor tech had seen that, the outcome might
have been different.
     That was the only chance they would have had.
     But the sensor techs' attention was caught up in the drama of waiting  to
see if the crippled gunship could possibly struggle in for a landing before it
blew up.
     Not to mention the fact that a second or two before it would have touched
down, it opened fire on the guardhouses surrounding  the  spaceport's  control
center, and an instant later seven immense  half-naked  Korunnai  with  shaven
heads leaped from it, landing on the permacrete like pouncing vine  cats,  and
charged toward the control center with their  hands  full  of  blaster  rifles
spitting fire.
     And that these unexpected Korunnai were followed by a  man  and  a  woman
bearing what was unquestionably the  single  most  conspicuous  and  instantly
recognizable type of personal weapon in the entire galaxy, and the type  least
welcome when it appeared on the opposing side.
     The Jedi lightsaber.
     So flustered were the spaceport's crew, that not a being among them  even
bothered to look up until the very moment  the  light  of  Al'har  upon  their
positions was eclipsed by the shadows of hovering Jadfhu-cl&ss landers.
     Then they did look up: in time to see ten durasteel  clouds  burst  in  a
rain of armored clone soldiers of  the  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic,  whose
arrival was so swift, efficient,  and  disciplined-and  in  such  overwhelming
force-that the antiship emplacements were taken without the loss of  a  single
trooper.
     The same, however, could not be said of the militia  crewmen.  The  clone
troopers, being unsentimental about such things, did not even bother  to  wipe
the blood off the walls and floors before replacing the crews with  their  own
men.
     The fighting at the control center was hotter, and lasted a  few  seconds
longer, but the outcome was the same-because the attackers were Akk Guards and
Jedi, and the defenders were, after all, only ordinary beings.
     The capture of the Pelek Baw spaceport took less than seven minutes  from
the instant the gunship opened fire,  and  resulted  in  the  capture  of  286
military personnel, of whom thirty-five were  seriously  wounded.  Forty-eight
were killed. Sixty-one civilian  employees  of  the  spaceport  were  detained
unharmed. All of the spaceport's aerospace defense units were captured intact,
as were all spacecraft then on site.
     Taken together with the Battle of Lorshan Pass, the capture of the  Pelek
Baw spaceport would have been considered one of the masterstrokes  of  General
Windu's distinguished career, if only the rest of the operation  had  gone  as
planned.
     But it is a truism that no battle plan long  survives  contact  with  the
enemy. This one was no exception.
     Mace didn't even have to leave the command  bunker  to  watch  everything
start to go wrong.
     The command bunker was a large, heavily armored hexagon in the middle  of
the spaceport's control center, filled with angled banks of consoles. The only
illumination in the room was spill from the  console  monitors  and  the  huge
rectangular holoprojector views that dominated each  of  the  six  walls;  the
general gloom thickened below console-height so  that  everyone  inside  waded
hip-deep in shadow. Dead space below the wall screens was currently serving as
a holding area for prisoners, as well as a makeshift aid station where wounded
men and women sat or lay while clone  troopers  dispassionately  tended  their
injuries.
     Kar Vaster and his Akk Guards paced the perimeter of the  room,  restless
as the wild animals they so nearly were. The Force swirled around them as they
stalked among the terrified prisoners; Mace could feel  them  drawing  on  the
prisoners' fear and pain and anguish, gathering it into themselves, storing it
like living power cells.
     Mace hadn't asked what Kar was planning to do with that power. He  had  a
more pressing problem.
     In the darkest corner of the room stood  an  armored  console,  separated
from the rest; it wore a codelocked cowl of durasteel  to  prevent  tampering.
This console was a late addition to the command center, having been  installed
by specialists from the Techno Union at the same time they had modernized  the
spaceport defenses. It was called the mutiny  box,  and  contained  individual
triggers for each of the destruct charges built into every turbolaser and  ion
cannon, every strongpoint and anti-starfighter turret.
     It seemed the Confederacy did not trust that the justice of its cause was
sufficient to ensure the loyalty of its troops.
     In the shadow of this  console,  on  a  makeshift  pallet  made  of  seat
cushions ripped from nearby chairs, lay Depa Billaba, nearly blind with  pain.
She had been weakening ever since the seizure of the command center,  and  now
she lay with one arm covering her eyes. Blood trickled from one  side  of  her
mouth, where she had gnawed her lip raw.
     Troopers controlled all the essential stations  in  the  command  center.
Several of them had  removed  their  helmets  to  accommodate  ear  pieces  or
goggles; Mace avoided looking in their direction. Empty helmets sitting on the
consoles too closely resembled the full one he had left on the arena  sand  at
Geonosis.
     Mace stood  at  the  satellite  console.  At  one  shoulder  stood  Nick,
breathing out a continuous whisper  of  obscenities.  At  his  other  was  the
stolidly motionless presence of CRC-09,'571.
     CRC-09,'571 was still wearing his helmet. This made it easier for Mace to
talk to him. He didn't particularly want to see the commander's face.
     He remembered too well the first time he had seen it. Just  knowing  that
face was there, under the smoked mask of the helmet, was like a mocking finger
tapping on the back of his head to remind him of Geonosis. Of everything  that
had happened there.
     Of everything his failure had begun.
     He did not want to be reminded of Geonosis. Especially not now.
     He couldn't take his eyes from the monitor.  Onscreen  was  the  realtime
display from the detector satellites in geosynchronous orbit.
     'Seven-One."
     The clone commander's voice crackled through his helmet speaker. "Sir."
     'Get the landers' engines hot. All of them."
     'We never shut them down, sir."
     'All right." Mace's habitual frown deepened. "If we  go,  we'll  need  to
give them plenty of targets. Initiate start-up on  every  ship  in  the  port.
Every one that's armed gets a gunner. How  many  of  your  men  are  qualified
pilots?"
     'All of them, sir."
     Mace nodded. "Detail your best-no." He scowled at himself. Though many of
the craft in the spaceport carried some armament, only the landers  themselves
were actual warships. This would be virtually  a  suicide  mission.  "Ask  for
volunteers."
     'It would be the same, sir."
     'I'm sorry?"
     'We always volunteer, sir. All of us. It's who we are."
     'Your best, then."
     'Yes, sir." CRC-09,'571  turned  aside  to  issue  crisp  orders  on  his
helmet's command-comm.
     Nick stopped cursing long enough to ask, "Are we leaving?"
     'No time," Mace said, still staring into the screen.
     It showed the airspace over Pelek Baw.
     'It's that bad?" Nick spread his hands.  "I  mean,  you've  got  a  plan,
right? You've got some trick to get us out of here?"
     'No more tricks," Mace said.
     The sky was full of droid starfighters.
     Incoming.
     'How long do we have?"
     Mace shook his head  again.  "Seven-One.  We  hold  the  ranking  militia
officer, yes?"
     'Yes, sir. Major Stempel."
     'Get him."
     CRC-09,'571 saluted stiffly. Mace acknowledged his salute with a wave  of
dismissal, and the clone commander strode away toward the huddle of prisoners.
     'What good is he gonna do us?"
     Mace pointed to a console a few meters  away.  "You  see  that?  That  is
linked by landline to a secure transmitter beneath this bunker. Which  is  the
only one on this planet that can send orders to those starfighters; that's the
reason this bunker is a bunker. Whoever called them in had to be here."
     Nick nodded, understanding. "The control code."
     CRC-09,'571 returned, accompanied by two troopers who held  between  them
an ashen-faced trembling man in the sweat-stained uniform of a militia  major.
"Major Stempel, I am Mace Windu," Mace began, but the shaking man cut him off.
     'I-I know what you want. But I can't help you. I don't know it! I  swear.
I never knew it. The codes are on a datapad-it's just a big  personal  datapad
in an armored shell. He carries it with him. I didn't even know  what  he  was
doing-he just ordered me to relay his signal through the control console-"
     Mace closed his eyes, and put his hand to his forehead.
     He felt a headache coming on.
     'Of course. I should have expected this," he muttered to himself. "I keep
forgetting that he's smarter than I am."
     'He? He who?" Nick demanded. "Who is this he you keep talking about?"
     'Priority signal incoming," the trooper at the comm board announced.  His
helmet rested on the console at his elbow; a cybernetic  headset  hung  across
his brow and down one side of his jaw, but even so, when he looked back it was
Jango Fett that Mace saw.
     'He says his name is Colonel Geptun," said this stranger with the face of
a dead man. "He's asking  for  you,  General.  He's  calling  to  accept  your
surrender."
     An immense, bluishly-translucent Lorz Geptun smiled his  well-fed  lizard
smile down into the command bunker from the main holoprojector view. His khaki
uniform shirt was again impeccably starched, and his aluminum-colored hair was
swept back from his forehead.
     'General Windu." He spoke with the same cheery lilt. "When last we met, I
had no idea I was entertaining  such  a  distinguished  Jedi  Master.  Not  to
mention famous. It's an honor, sir. How was your trip upcountry?"
     Depa was sitting up now, leaning on a desk, staring  dazedly  up  at  the
screen. The light cast by Geptun's image threw black  shadows  that  swallowed
her eyes.
     Kar and his Akks still paced. The clones stood motionless.
     'I take it," said Mace Windu, "that you did not get my message."
     'Message? Oh, the message. Yes, yes, quite. My Jedi Problem and all. Very
thoughtful. Most appreciated."
     'Then you didn't believe it."
     'Should I have?"
     'You had the word of a Jedi Master."
     'Ah, yes. Honor, duty, justice. The flavor of the month. I can't  imagine
why I wouldn't simply take the word of a Jedi Master.  Really,  what  could  I
have been thinking? Mmm-by the way, how is Master
     Billaba? Hasn't found the mass murders of our citizens to be a strain  on
her health, has she?"
     'You," said Mace Windu, "said something about surrender."
     Geptun's lips pressed  together  as  though  he  tasted  something  sour.
"Really, Master Windu, it's not every day a man in my position achieves such a
resounding victory. In any civilized society, I should be permitted  a  moment
to savor it."
     'Take all the time you want. Call back when you're finished."
     'Ah. Quite. After all, I didn't call to gloat. Well,  not  entirely.  So.
This is your situation.
     'There  are  several  hundred  droid  starfighters  over  your  position.
Anything that takes off from the spaceport will be shot down without  warning.
Anything airborne throughout the capital district, in fact.  Meanwhile-oh,  by
the way, have I complimented  you  on  your  maneuver  at  the  Lorshan  Pass?
Brilliant, Master Windu. Truly a work of art. You must be  quite  the  dejarik
player." His pale eyes sparkled gleefully. "I have been known  to  indulge  in
the game myself. Perhaps-should our discussion today  end  profitably  for  us
both-we might have a match some time."
     'Isn't that what we've been doing?" Without a sideways glance  or  change
of expression, Mace sent a pulse in the  Force  down  the  connection  he  had
forged with Nick Rostu. The young Korun's eyes  widened,  then  narrowed;  his
face went blank, and he turned away to speak softly to a nearby trooper.
     'In a way, Master Windu. In a way. So. Where was I? Yes: Meanwhile,  back
at the Pass... I have fifteen thousand regulars on the ground. And while  your
clever bit of droid-baffling cost me almost fifty gunships, I have some  left.
Several, in fact. Of which twenty or so are already at the Lorshan  Pass,  and
have already made a bloody mess of your landers and your defensive  perimeter.
I'm told your surviving troopers still hold the mouth of the  tunnel,  but  of
course they won't for long. I imagine their next move  will  be  to  mine  the
tunnel, and collapse it like you did the others. Which works for  me;  I  have
sappers clearing the other tunnels already. We'll be inside within  the  hour.
Which is exactly how long you have to save your people."
     'An hour."
     'Ah, no: you misunderstand. I  am  plagued  by  unreliable  subordinates;
perhaps you can sympathize. My troops are not so disciplined  as  yours.  They
are young men, after all, and their blood is up. It may take them an  hour  to
get inside. It may take them ten minutes.  Once  they  enter  those  caves,  I
should be very much surprised if any Korun leaves that place alive."
     'Geptun-"
     "Colonel Geptun."
     '-there are over two thousand civilians in there. The old, and  the  very
young. Would you have your men slaughter children?"
     'There is only one way to stop them," Geptun said  regretfully.  "I  must
give them the order to stand down before they breach those caves."
     'And for that, you want our surrender."
     Yes.
     'There are," Mace said slowly, "civilians in here, as well."
     'Of course there are." Geptun's smile  broadened.  "Civilians  that  you,
Mace Windu, would give your life to protect. I cannot be bluffed. Not by you."
     Mace lowered his head.
     'Don't take it too hard, General. In dejarik, part  of  true  mastery  is
recognizing when a game is lost." Geptun cleared his throat  delicately.  "You
have, sad to say, only one move left: to resign."
     'Give us a a little time." Defeat had leaked into Mace's voice. "We-we'll
have to talk it over-"
     'Ah, time. Of course. Take as long as you like. It's not actually  up  to
me, is it? My sappers are quite,  shall  we  say,  gifted?  They  could  break
through at any moment. It would be-mmmm, ironic-if your surrender were to come
too late to save all those innocent lives..."
     'Yes." Mace's voice was subdued. "I'll call back on the same frequency."
     'I look forward to it. It's been a pleasure playing against  you,  Master
Windu. Geptun out."
     The image on the huge wallscreen faded. Silence shrouded the room.
     Depa tottered to her feet.  "Mace..."  Her  voice  trickled  off  into  a
whimper of pain; she lowered her head and clenched her  jaw,  pulling  herself
together by sheer willpower. "Mace,  we  can't  let  the  militia  kill  those
people. Your people-"
     'My people," said Mace Windu, "are Jedi."
     He lifted his head, and he didn't look beaten at all. "Nick."
     Nick Rostu looked up from the console where he was huddled with a pair of
troopers, and his eyes sparkled. "Got him. The Ministry of Justice. Pegged him
with his own bloody satellites!"
     Depa looked stunned; Kar Vastor's face birthed a predatory grin.
     Mace nodded. "Depa. Time to fight. Are you strong enough?"
     She passed a hand before her face, and her gaze sharpened for  a  moment,
but then she sagged, holding herself up with one hand while the other  pressed
against her temple. "I-I think so, Mace-but it's too, too-there's so much..."
     The ragged exhaustion in her voice twisted in his stomach like  a  knife.
"All right. Stay here."
     'No-no, I can fight-"
     'Perhaps you can. But  I  can't,  while  I  know  that  you're  about  to
collapse. You're staying. That's an order."
     He turned away. "Nick: you're with me. Get  Chalk  and  meet  me  at  the
gunship."
     Nick jumped for the door, then jerked to a  stop,  whirled,  and  made  a
credible attempt at a salute that he ruined  with  a  smirk  and  a  one-armed
shrug. "Sorry: forgot."  Mace  acknowledged  his  salute,  and  Nick  vanished
through the bunker's doorway.
     'Mace-" Depa struggled toward him, and reached out as though to take  his
hand from across the room. Kar Vaster strode up behind her, arms out to  catch
her if she fell. "You can't-you won't have a chance... They'll shoot you  down
before you clear the landing field."
     'They won't shoot me down. I'm not going up. That  gunship  is  about  to
become Haruun Kal's largest landspeeder. Nick knows the streets. He can get us
where we need to go."
     She half-fell toward the nearest chair; Vaster caught her  and  low  ered
her gently into it. She winced a rueful thanks up at him, and placed her  hand
on his before turning back to Mace. "You're going after the Colonel-?"
     'I don't need him. I need that datapad."
     'What will you..." Her eyes drifted closed, and  she  had  to  force  the
words out. Kar squeezed her hand, and a half a smile flowed  across  her  lips
before draining into the burn scar at the corner of her mouth. "What will  you
do... with Geptun?"
     Mace stared at them: Depa Billaba and Kar Vaster.
     He had to go. He had to leave her behind. Let her stay. With him.
     He might never see her again.
     He couldn't make himself say good-bye.
     In the end, all he could do was answer her question. "Colonel Geptun is a
dangerous man," he said. "Exceedingly dangerous. I'll probably  have  to  kill
him."
     He frowned, and tipped his head in a Korun shrug.  "Or,  possibly,  offer
him a job."



     INFERNO


     Twilight.
     Turbolaser batteries cast building-sized  shadows  across  the  darkening
plain  of  permacrete.  Silent  clones  sat  behind  the  plated  shields   of
antistarfighter  duals  and  quads;  the  only  sound  was  a  soft  whine  of
servomotors  as  computer-tracked  cannons  traced   the   motion   of   droid
starfighters still too high to be more than bright specks in the setting sun.
     A tiny noise-a  half-swallowed  whine  of  pain  and  frustration-brought
Mace's  attention  up  from  the  gunship's  preflight  checklist.  Chalk  was
struggling with the nav chair's  seat  straps;  her  tightly  bandaged  wounds
wouldn't let her twist far enough to reach the length control.  Her  face  had
gone so pale that her freckles stood out like grease-splatters, and  a  streak
of blood reddened the sheath of bandages around her chest.
     'Here, let me." Mace adjusted the strap length and  buckled  her  in.  He
frowned at the blood on her bandages. "When did this happen?"
     Chalk shrugged, avoiding his eyes. "On the jump, maybe. At the Pass."
     'You should have said something."
     She pushed his hands away and busied herself with weapons  checks.  "  'M
okay. Tough girl, me-"
     'I know you are, Chalk. But your wounds-" 
     "Don't have time  to  be  hurt, me." She  nodded  up   through  the  oval 
lightsaber-cut gap in the windscreen.  Far above  the  city,  the  setting sun 
struck  sparks  from  the  impossibly  complex   shimmerfly dance of the droid 
starfighters. "Are in danger, people.  People  I love. Can hurt later, me."
     The fierce conviction in her voice gave Mace pause. An inventory  of  his
own wounds flickered through his mind: his concussion that was giving him this
headache, his cracked ribs, his sprained  ankle  that  had  him  limping,  the
infected blaster-burn on his thigh, the spray-bandaged bite wound that  Vaster
had given him, not to mention all his minor cuts and the bruises that  covered
so much of his body it was hard to tell one from the next.
     And yet he fought on, and would fight on.  Wounds?  Right  now  he  could
barely feel them. Because someone he loved was in danger.
     'When this is over," he said, nodding his understanding, "you and I  will
check into a med center. Together." The smile she gave him showed only a trace
of pain. Nick poked his head through the cockpit doorway. "Looks like we're  a
go-hey, look at this" he said with a sudden frown,  staring  out  through  the
windscreen.
     Through the shadows slashing the landing  field  loped  Kar  Vaster.  His
shields flashed eye-stinging highlights from the glowpanel dayfloods that now,
with sunset passing, shone upon the ships. He waved as he ran, clearly  asking
Mace to wait for him.
     'What, does he want  to  fight  again  or  something?"  Nick  brightened.
"Y'know, we could just shoot him-accidentally, like. One  of  those  senseless
weapons-check tragedies-"
     "Nick." 
     "Yeah, yeah."
     Without expression, Mace watched Vaster approach. Only  moments  ago-just
before he left the command bunker to come out here-he had pulled aside CRC-09,
'571 for a private conversation. "Your  orders  come  only  from  me,  do  you
understand?" he had told the clone commander. "I want  you  to  be  absolutely
clear on that."
     CRC-09,'571's helmet  had  tilted  to  a  quizzical  angle.  "But  Master
Billaba-"
     'Has been relieved of her duties. As has Kar Vaster."
     'And his men, sir?"
     'They have no military rank or authority."
     'Would the general like them disarmed and restrained?"
     Mace had grimly surveyed the cramped  quarters  of  the  command  bunker,
crowded with troopers and prisoners. In his mind, he saw twenty corpses  in  a
gunship's troop bay. "No. I'm not sure you can. But watch them. They  are  not
to be trusted. They may become violent without warning. They may try  to  harm
the prisoners. Or possibly even you."
     'Yes, sir."
     'And get the prisoners out of here. Away from them. Not all at once. Make
up some pretext, and start moving them out as efficiently as possible."
     'And if there is a  confrontation,  sir?"  CRC-09,'571's  dry  voice  had
slowed,  as  though  the  commander  were  reluctant  to  even  consider   the
possibility. "If they attack?"
     'Defend yourself, your men, and the prisoners," Mace had told  him.  "Use
all necessary force."
     'Lethal force, sir?"
     Mace  had  stared  at  his  own  reflection  in  the  commander's  smoked
eyeshield. He had to swallow once, hard, before he could reply.
     'Yes." He'd had to look away; he'd found that  reflection  too  dark  for
what he knew he had to say. "You are authorized to use lethal force."
     Out on the landing field, Vaster didn't bother to come around toward  the
troop bay doors; without breaking stride he  burst  into  a  Force  leap  that
carried him up to the Turbostorm's nose below the cockpit with  a  clank  that
must have been his deactivated vibroshields getting in the way of his grab for
the nose armor. He climbed up into view, settling himself into a crouch on the
nose armor outside the windscreen.
     He squatted there for a moment,  forearms  resting  on  his  bent  knees,
staring gravely at Mace through the opening.
     Mace,Jedi  of  the  Windu.  Even  his   growl   was   reluctant.   Almost
contemplative.
     'Kar."
     We have not been friends, you and I. If  we  both  survive  this  day,  I
suspect that again we will not befriends.
     Mace only nodded.
     We may not meet again. I would have you know that I am  glad  I  did  not
kill you this afternoon. No one else could have done what you have done today.
No one else could have brought us so far.
     This, also, did not call for a reply. Mace waited.
     Vastor's mouth compressed as though sharing this caused him pain, and his
growl became almost a purr, low in his throat.
     I would have you know that I am proud to  be  your  doshalo.  You  are  a
credit to the Windu.
     Mace took a deep breath. "You," he said, slow, coldly deliberate,
     M), " arent.
     It was Vastor's turn to silently stare.
     'I am not Mace, Jedi of the Windu. Windu is my name, not  my  ghosh.  You
and I are not doshallai. The Windu  are  no  more,  and  what  you  have  done
disgraces their memory. My ghosh," said Mace Windu, "is the Jedi."
     He went back to his preflight checklist. "It  would  be  good,"  he  said
distantly, "if you were to be gone when I get back."
     Vaster had turned his face toward the spiral dance of  the  starfight-ers
as Mace spoke; he did not seem to hear. He stared upward as  though  listening
to the stars. He passed a second or two in  silence  and  stillness,  then  he
nodded gravely and looked back at Mace.
     Until we meet again, doshalo. He spun like a startled branch leopard  and
sprang down from the Turbostorm's nose to  sprint  away  across  the  floodlit
permacrete.
     Mace flicked  the  last  ten  switches  into  flight  sequence,  and  the
Turbostorm rocked gently as its repulsorlifts brought it up to an altitude  of
just under a meter.
     'Let's go."
     By the time the Turbostorm roared through the spaceport  gates  into  the
warehouse district of Pelek  Baw,  it  was  already  doing  over  two  hundred
kilometers an hour. The lightsaber gap in the windscreen shrieked like  a  bad
wailhorn in a  third-rate  smazzo  band.  Immense  night-blackened  blocks  of
warehouses crowded the right-of-ways for a kilometer  or  more  north  of  the
spaceport, but the streets  themselves  were  empty.  Mace  intended  to  take
advantage while he could.
     Nick held on to  the  backs  of  Mace's  and  Chalk's  chairs,  squinting
doubtfully up through the windscreen's gap. "Uh, y'know, if you don't mind  my
asking, are you sure those droid  starfighters  won't  come  down  for  ground
vehicles as well?"
     'I'm sure."
     'But, I mean, how do you knowT
     'I'll show you." Mace heeled the Turbostorm over, using its thrusters  to
help negotiate a tight corner; it  bounced  jarringly  off  a  warehouse  hard
enough to dent its armor and knock a steamcrawler-sized hole in the building's
wall. He fought the controls and steadied the ship, then nodded forward  along
the long straight stretch of street.
     Half a klick ahead, the gigantic slope-armored hulk of a  ground  assault
vehicle clanked out from a side street.
     Mace said, "That's how."
     Its turret was already rotated the quarter turn to bear on the Turbostorm
and Mace said, "Chalk," but she was ahead of him: the  quad  turrets  on  both
sides of the gunship burst to  life  and  filled  the  street  with  streaking
packets of energy-
     Which crashed into the GAV without even scratching it.
     Nick was shouting, "You'll never breach  that  armor!"  while  Chalk  was
letting her gaze defocus and her hands relax on the split yoke. "Not  shooting
at his armor, me," she murmured and she held down the triggers  as  the  GAV's
cannon bucked with the launch of an armor-piercing shell-
     That met a laser blast nose-first while still inside the barrel.
     The explosion was gratifying.
     It left the cannon's barrel peeled back on itself in  a  spray  of  black
ened durasteel twists, making the GAV look like a droid smoking  an  exploding
cigar.
     'Okay," Nick said. "Now I'm impressed."
     The GAV's gunners opened up with its heavy slug-repeater,  making  riding
in the Turbostorm resemble having one's head inside a durasteel  trash  barrel
that's being clubbed by  a  pack  of  drunken  squibs.  Slug  impacts  pounded
prismatic dents across the transparis-teel windscreen. Mace said, "Time to get
off the street."
     'You can't!" Nick shouted. "They'll shoot us down!"
     'Off, not up. Open fire."
     Chalk held down the quad triggers. Mace yanked the control yoke  to  slew
the Turbostorm sideways  and  sent  full  power  of  both  quads  against  the
warehouse beside them.  A  huge  mouth,  teeth  of  dura-crete  dangling  from
reinforcing bars, suddenly gaped in the wall,  and  Mace  rammed  the  gunship
through the gap.
     Inside the building.
     'Yow!"
     'Know what you're doing, you?"
     'Keep firing."
     Cargo containers flashed by them to either side, lit red by the blaze  of
fire from their guns, then another cannon-blasted mouth opened in the opposite
wall and they broke out into the next street over-
     Which was also full of militia.
     At least a company of heavy infantry, with a couple of  mobile  artillery
pieces and possibly more out there that Mace  didn't  have  time  to  identify
because he just kept the gunship roaring straight on  through  the  middle  of
them and into the warehouse across the street before  any  of  the  astonished
Balawai could so much as charge their weapons.
     Blasting through buildings when they had to, zooming along  open  streets
when they could, zigzagging and backtracking to find gaps  in  the  tightening
net of heavy armor that was  rolling  through  the  warehouse  district,  they
fought their way out into the city, leaving a wake of astonished  Balawai  and
an immense connect-the-dots trail of burning warehouses.
     Sometimes, when things go wrong, they go wrong one at a time: a chain  of
misfortune that must be dealt with link by link. Those are the easy times.
     Sometimes troubles come in a starburst.
     When they had finally broken  free  from  the  warehouse  district,  Mace
brought the gunship down to a walking pace. The evening thoroughfares of Pelek
Baw were crowded as always, but beings of all species  hastily  stepped  aside
for the idling gunship cruising through the city at street level.
     At least, whenever they stopped staring long enough to move.
     'Nick. Do you know where we are?"
     The young Korun leaned around him to stare out  the  windscreen;  off  to
their port side, the sky was red with the  light  of  the  fires  they'd  left
behind. "So much for the element of surprise..."
     'Nick."
     Nick shook his head dejectedly. "Don't you get it? They know we're coming
now. The Ministry of Justice is like afortress. Hell, it is  a  fortress.  Not
even you can get in there. Not now. Now they'll be ready for us."
     Mace said, "They always were. That's all right: we're not going there."
     'Huh?"
     'Geptun is smart. Possibly too smart for his own  good.  He  knows  we'll
come for him; it's the only move we have. That's why we tracked his signal  so
easily: he wants us to hit the Ministry of Justice. If he were really  in  the
Ministry, he could have found a  way  to  mask  his  signal.  There  won't  be
anything there except a very large number of troops. Or possibly only  a  very
large bomb."
     'Then what are we fraggin' doing out here? Where is he?"
     'A place with electronics sophisticated enough to  fake  the  origination
data of a comm signal," Mace said. "I  may  not  be  the  dejarik  player  our
colonel is, but there's nothing wrong with my memory. The one time we met,  it
was on the occasion of the death of someone he described as an old friend."
     Nick's eyes narrowed. "Tenk..." he  breathed.  "You  think  he's  at  the
Washeteria."
     'Can you get us there?"   
     "Sure.  Simple.  All  you  gotta  do  is  bear northeast-"
     He was interrupted by Chalk's hand on his arm.
     She gave him a sickly smile, and her throat worked  as  though  she  were
struggling not to retch. "Maybe... maybe better-" She coughed wetly.
     Blood spattered from her lips.
     'Chalk!"
     Her fingers dug into his arm: a spasm. Her other hand was pressed to  her
side. Her face was gray, and her eyes looked foggy. "Maybe  better  take  nav,
you," she said, and slumped.
     Her hand fell away from her ribs,  revealing  a  ragged  hole  below  her
breast. She crumpled forward against the nav chair's  safety  straps.  In  her
back was an exit wound Nick could have put his fist into. The  chair-back  had
an even bigger hole, and the cockpit wall behind bore a splash  of  blood  and
tissue and shreds of black synth-leather.
     Nick threw his arms around her, holding her head up,  pleading  with  her
empty eyes. "Chalk, no, not you, come on, not you too, come on, Chalk, please-
"
     Mace looked at the windscreen: at the line of rainbow-ringed  slug  dents
from that first GAV: a line punctuated by the lightsaber-cut gap-She had taken
that slug minutes ago. Without a word. Without a  sound. She  had  held on-had 
fought on-
     Because people she loved were in danger.
     'The medical center-" Nick's voice had gone thick. "The medical  center's
only a klick or two from here-"
     Mace's decision did not take even a full second. General or not,  he  was
still a Jedi. "Just tell me which way to go."
     'Okay. Okay." Nick tore himself away from Chalk  and  pointed  toward  an
intersection ahead. "Okay, go left at the corner, then-"
     The street in front of them erupted like a chain of volcanos:  explosions
at the terminal points of scarlet particle beams that rained  upon  them  from
the night sky: aimed not at the street but  at  a  hurtling  dark  shape  that
twisted through a barrel roll over the buildings before it took a  direct  hit
and tumbled into a ball of debris-spewing fire that slammed an apartment block
only a few dozen meters short of the Turbostorm.
     The blast picked up the gunship and spun it down the street.
     Of the unarmored groundcars,  and  the  pedestrians,  the  taxicarts  and
street vendors, the elderly on their stoops and the children  who  had  darted
playfully around the tall lightpoles-
     Nothing was left but smoking rubble and twisted metal.
     'What in the-" Nick reeled off an impressive string of obscenities. "-was
thatT
     Mace wrestled the Turbostorm out of its spin and  cut  the  engines;  the
ship skidded down the street trailing a fountaining tail of sparks. He  leaned
forward, his knuckles pale on the control yoke,  and  stared  up  through  the
windscreen.
     'May the Force give me strength..." he whispered: as close to a curse  as
he had ever come.
     That hurtling dark shape had been one of the Incom  Skyhoppers  from  the
spaceport. The cannonfire that had rained on the street and brought  down  the
skyhopper had come from droid starfighters.
     The night sky was full of ships.
     Above the city.
     'Oh, Depa..." Mace breathed.
     More than four hundred thousand people lived in Pelek Baw.  Drawing  fire
from the starfighters down upon it could put the entire capital to the torch.
     No: not could.
     Had.
     The skyhopper wasn't the first ship to crash into the crowded streets  of
the capital tonight. And there were over a  hundred  more,  from  tiny  racing
yachts to immense freighters.
     He felt the city in the Force: a holocaust of flame and darkness.
     Panic. Rage. Grief.
     Horror.
     There was nothing else left.
     But the spaceport had a different feel entirely.  "Depa,  what  have  you
doneT
     The comm panel chimed to announce an incoming  voice-and-visual.  Numbly,
Mace reached past Nick and Chalk to hit the receive key.  Scanning  lasers  in
the comm  unit  traced  a  blue-lined  image  shadow  on  the  windscreen:  an
electronic pre-echo of the  larger-than-life  holo-image  projected  into  the
burning night outside.
     An image of a huge Korun with a shaven head and a smile like  a  mouthful
of bone needles.
     He growled, and Mace wondered how Vaster could expect to  be  understood-
his Force-powered semi-telepathy wouldn't  modulate  a  comm  signal-but  this
little mystery instantly solved itself.
     When the lor pelek growled, the dark storm that had swallowed  Pelek  Baw
growled with him.
     Thank you for giving us the city, doshalo. His smile spread  like  flames
on oil. We have decided to redecorate.
     Mace opened his mouth to ask for CRC-09,'571-and  closed  it  again.  The
commander had been warned not to take orders from them.
     They must have killed him.
     'Kar, where's Depa?" Mace held his desperate horror  locked  deep  inside
his chest. "Let me talk to her."
     She doesn't want to talk to you. She doesn't want to  see  you.  Ever.  I
have arranged matters so she won't have to.
     'Kar, stop this. You have to stop this!"
     And I will. Vastor's lips pulled back from those needle teeth, and  there
was no longer even the pretense of a smile. When everyone is dead.
     'You don't understand what you're doing-"
     Yes, I do. And so do you.
     Mace's stare burned like the city around him.
     He did understand. Finally. Too late.
     He had no words for what he felt. Perhaps there were no words.
     I called to say good-bye, doshalo. Depa will remember you fondly. As will
we all. It is a hero's death you go to, Mace of the Windu.
     Mace showed his own teeth. "I'm not dead yet."
     Vastor's blue-imaged head tilted a centimeter to the right. What time  is
it?
     Mace froze.
     A metallic clank echoed in his memory.
     A clank that might have been deactivated vibroshields  hitting  the  nose
armor of a Sienar Turbostorm.
     Or-
     Not.
     "Nick.1" Mace's sudden shout shocked the young Korun like a shot  from  a
stun baton. "Hang on!"
     'Hang on to what?!"
      Then arming levers on the seat ejectors  flipped  up;
Nick swore and threw his arms around Chalk half a second before  the  triggers
pressed themselves and explosive bolts blew the windscreen up and out and  her
chair shot toward the rooftops, out of balance and tumbling into the night sky
as the time  fuse  on  the  proton  grenade  Vaster  had  mag-clamped  to  the
Turbostorm's nose precisely where its shaped charge would blow a  dozen  kilos
of shredded armor plate through the cockpit sideways...
     Detonated.


     Mace found them by following his Force-link with Nick.
     Double-loaded and out of balance, Chalk's ejector chair had carried  them
only as far as a black rooftop, flat and sticky with tar, before  crashing  to
spill them across it. Flames from other buildings around  lit  its  walls  and
cast its square shadow toward the stars.
     Nick's silent silhouette knelt with  bowed  head  beside  her.  His  hand
gently stroked bloody tangles of hair away from her face; tears from his  eyes
fell to her cheeks, as though death had finally allowed  this  tough  girl  to
weep.
     Mace stood at the roof's rim and looked out across the city.
     His chair had carried him a dozen blocks away. He had come here on foot.
     The streets were a nightmare.
     Cannonfire rained at random. Missiles that had lost their targets blasted
groundcars and streets vendor stalls.  People  ran  and  screamed.  Many  were
armed. More carried bundles of valuables saved-more often looted-from  burning
buildings. Bodies lay sprawled on the pavement, ignored except for  the  curse
they would get when someone tripped over them in blind panic.
     He'd seen a little girl clutching the bloody tatters of a corpse's  dress
while she tried to scream life back into its body.
     He'd seen a Wookiee and a Yuzzem locked together, clawing and biting  and
shredding each other, howls of terrified rage muffled  by  mouthfuls  of  each
other's flesh and fur.
     He'd seen a man not two meters in front of  him  chopped  in  half  by  a
blasted-free hull plate that had fallen from the  sky  like  a  tabletop-sized
cleaver.
     From the rooftop, the capital of Haruun Kal looked like a  night-shrouded
volcanic plain: a vast dark field pocked with calderae that  opened  on  hell.
Clone-piloted  ships  streaked  and  spun  and  rolled,  desperately   dodging
starfighters that swooped and dived and  spat  flame.  In  those  contests  it
didn't matter who won; the city lost.
     Pelek Baw had always been a jungle,  but  only  in  a  metaphoric  sense.
Vaster had brought the real one.
     He was the real one.
     And he was eating this city alive.
     'I always used to..." Nick's voice was soft. Almost expressionless.  Just
slow, and faintly puzzled. He still knelt over her. "I used to,  y'know,  kind
of think... y'know, maybe someday, when I leave this fraggin' planet..."
     He shook his head helplessly. "I always kind of thought she'd  be  coming
with me."
     'Nick-"
     'Not that I asked her, you understand. No. Not that I ever had  the  guts
to say anything to her. About that. About-" He lifted his  face  to  the  cold
distant stars. "About us. It just... it was just, y'know, just never the right
time. And I kind of thought she knew. I hope she knew."
     'Nick, I'm sorry. I cannot tell you how sorry I am."
     'Yeah." Nick nodded slowly, pensively, as though each motion of his  head
welded another layer of armor around his grief. Then he sucked air through his
teeth and shoved himself to his feet. "Lots of people are sorry tonight."
     He had her gunbelt in his hands.
     He moved to the roof rim to stand beside Mace and  look  out  across  the
burning city. "They're all against us now," he  said  softly.  "Not  just  the
militia and the droids."
     'Yes."
     He buckled Chalk's gunbelt around his waist, and tied her holster down to
his left thigh, to match his own on his right. "They've turned on us.  All  of
them. Kar and his Akks. Depa. Even the clones."
     'The clones," Mace said distantly, "are only following orders."
     'Orders from our enemies."
     Now it was Mace's turn to lower his head: Mace's turn to  nod  layers  of
armor around his own grief. "Yes."
     'And on our side-it's us. You and me. Nobody  else."  He  drew  her  gun,
smooth and fast, checking its heft and balance. He popped the clip and snapped
it back in. "Y'know, Kar saved her life."
     He spun the pistol forward, then reversed it so that its own spin slipped
it snugly into the holster. "Temporarily."
     Mace murmured, "It's always temporary."
     He stared down into the pandemonium on the street. An  armored  groundcar
filled with militia swung around a corner.  The  gunner  on  the  roof-mounted
EWHB-10 fired short bursts into the air to clear the road; some of  the  armed
looters returned fire.
     Nick said softly, "You got any idea what we're gonna do?"
     Before Mace could speak, Nick smiled tiredly and raised  a  hand.  "Don't
bother. I know what you're about to say."
     'I don't think you do."
     Mace gave the militia vehicle below a speculative frown.
     'We're going to surrender."




     SURRENDER


     
     The Highland Green Washeteria was an imposing verdigris-domed edifice  of
gleaming white tile set off by obsidian grout. When the groundcar pulled up to
it, its sign was dark and its elaborate array of arched windows were sealed by
durasteel blast shutters.
     A block away, the streets were choked with burning  wreckage;  here,  all
was dark and still.
     The squad's noncom  peered  dimly  through  the  groundcar's  windscreen.
"Dunno why the colonel'd be here" he said doubtfully.
     'Maybe he wants a bath," Nick said dryly from the rear compartment, where
he sat among the other four sweaty, tired-looking regulars. "Which wouldn't do
any of you guys any harm either, I mean, shee..."
     'He's here," Mace said from the front seat next to the noncom. "Let's get
out."
     'I guess he could be  here,"  the  noncom  admitted  reluctantly.  "Okay,
everybody out."
     As the squad piled out onto the walkway, the noncom  muttered,  "I  still
think we shoulda tried the Ministry. And I probably oughta put binders on you,
too."
     'There's no reason to go to the Ministry," Mace said. "And you don't need
the binders."
     'Ahh, frag the binders anyway. Okay, let's  go."  The  noncom  tried  the
blast-shuttered door. "Locked."
     Purple energy flared. Durasteel sizzled. White-hot edges dulled  to  red,
then darkened entirely. Mace said, "No, it isn't."
     The noncom used the barrel of his blaster rifle as a  pry  bar  to  swing
open the door. "Hey, what are you guys doing here?"
     The broad sculpted lobby of the Washeteria had been turned into a  heavy-
weapons nest. A platoon of militia crouched, squatted, or lay behind temporary
barriers of expanded permacrete. Tripod-mounted repeaters were levelled at the
open door. The men's faces were drawn, their eyes round and haunted; here  and
there a rifle muzzle trembled.
     An oddly familiar voice replied, "A guy might want to ask  you  the  same
question."
     'Well, I captured that Jedi  everybody's  looking  for,  didn't  I,"  the
noncom said. "Here, come on in."
     Mace stepped around the open door.
     "You!"
     It was the big man from the spaceport pro-bi showers, and he didn't  look
frightened at all.
     Mace said, "How's your nose?"
     The big man went for his sidearm with an impressively swift draw.
     Mace's was faster.
     By the time the big man's blaster cleared his holster, Mace  was  staring
at him past the sizzling purple fountain of his blade. "Don't."
     Nick said, "You guys know each other?"
     The big man held the blaster steady, aimed at Mace's upper lip.  He  said
sourly, " Captured him, did you?"
     'Uh, sure, Lieutenant-" The noncom blinked uncertainly. "Well, okay, they
surrendered, but it's the same thing, right? I mean, he's here, ain't he?"
     'Stand away from them. All of you. Right now."
     The squad scattered.
     Mace said, "I need to see Colonel Geptun."
     'Y'know, that's a funny thing." The  big  lieutenant  squinted  past  his
blaster's sights. "Because he don't want to see you. He told me  specifically. 
About you. He said you might show up here. He  said   you're  supposed  to  be 
shot on sight."
     'Shooting at Jedi," Mace said, "is a losing proposition."
     'Yeah, I've heard that."
     'Lieutenant, do you have a family?"
     The officer scowled. "None of your business."
     'Have you looked outside recently?"
     The big man's jaw tightened. He didn't answer. He didn't have to.
     Mace said, "I can stop it.  Those  ships  your  droids  are  chasing  are
piloted by men under my command. But if something were to happen to me..."
     The big man's chin drew down stubbornly. His men frowned at  each  other;
some bit their lips or shifted their weight.  One  of  them  said  doubtfully,
"Hey, Lou, y'know-I got two kids, and Gemmy's up with another-"
     'Shut it."
     'Your choice is straightforward," Mace said. "You can follow  orders  and
open fire. Most of you will die. And your families will  be  left  out  there.
Without you. And without any hope other than that their deaths might be quick.
     'Or you can bring me to Colonel Geptun. Save  hundreds  of  thousands  of
lives. Including your own.
     'Do your duty. Or do what's right. It's up to you."
     The big man ground out his words between clenched teeth.  "You  know  the
last time I could breathe okay?" he growled, pointing at his nose. "Guess.  Go
on. Guess."
     'Yours is not the only nose  I've  broken  on  this  planet,"  Mace  said
evenly. "And you deserved it more than he did."
     The big man's knuckles whitened on the blaster.
     Mace lowered his lightsaber but kept its blade humming.  "Why  don't  you
call the colonel and ask? It is possible," he said with half a nod back toward
the bloody chaos outside, "that he has changed his mind."
     The lieutenant's scowl thickened until it broke under its own weight.  He
shook his head disgustedly and let his gun arm fall to his side.  "They  don't
pay me enough for this."
     He came out from behind the permacrete barrier and went to the house comm
at the hostess desk. A brief conversation went on in undertones. When  it  was
over, he looked even more disgusted. He returned his blaster  to  its  holster
and waved his empty hand at his men. "Awright, stand down, everybody. Put  'em
away."
     While his men complied, he walked over to Mace. "I'll need your weapons."
     From behind Mace's shoulder, Nick said,  "You  don't  have  to  take  our
weapons."
     'Don't quit your day job, kid." The lieutenant held out his  hand.  "Come
on: I can't bring you down there armed."
     Mace silently handed over his lightsaber. Nick flushed while  he  dangled
his pistols from one finger through each trigger guard.
     The lieutenant  took  both  pistols  in  one  hand,  and  weighed  Mace's
lightsaber in the palm of the other. He  gave  it  a  thoughtful  frown.  "The
colonel said you're Mace Windu."
     'Did he?"
     The officer looked the Jedi Master in the eye. "Is it true? You're really
him? Mace Windu?"
     Mace admitted it.
     'Then maybe I don't mind the nose so much." The big man  shook  his  head
ruefully. "I guess I'm lucky to be alive at all, huh?"
     'You," Mace said, "should consider a new line of work."


     The entrance to the Republic Intelligence station was a waterproof hatch;
it was disguised as part of the checkered tile pattern  on  the  bottom  of  a
steaming mineral bath fed by the natural hot springs below the Washeteria. The
lieutenant led Mace and Nick to a wading-stair from the  deck  down  into  the
shallow end. Two sweating regulars brought up the rear, rifles slanted  across
their chests.
     Nick made a face. "Stinks in here. People really want to go in that?"
     'Not many, I bet," the big man said. "If they did,  it  wouldn't  make  a
real good secret entrance, would it?"
     A concealed latch opened a code panel that  swung  down  from  the  stair
rail. The lieutenant tucked Mace's lightsaber under his arm so he could  punch
some keys, and the field generator built into the stairs and  the  pool  floor
hummed to life. An electric crackle heralded the opening of a  channel;  walls
of sizzling energy held back the sul-furously steaming water. Toward the  deep
end the channel became a tunnel. Another  code  panel  opened  the  waterproof
hatch, and openwork stairs with drains beneath  them  led  down  into  a  dry,
brightly lit room filled with the very latest electronic  surveillance,  code-
breaking, and communications equipment.
     A handful of people in civilian clothes monitored  the  various  stations
like they knew what they were doing.  There  was  an  undertone  of  insistent
muttering, and many of the console monitors showed only snow.
     The lieutenant showed them to a  small  gloomy  chamber  with  holoviewer
walls and a heavy lammas table in the center. The only light  in  the  chamber
came from the holoviewers: they  showed  realtime  images  of  the  city.  The
ceiling sparkled with swooping droid starfighters and the hurtling ships  they
pursued. Burning buildings cast  a  dull  flickering  rose-colored  glow  that
silhouetted a small plump man seated at the far end of the table.
     'Master Windu. Please come in." Geptun's voice was thin,  and  the  self-
deprecating chuckle he  offered  had  a  fragile  edge.  "It  appears  that  I
miscalculated."
     Mace said, "We both did."
     'I never suspected that Jedi could be capable of such... savagery."
     'Neither did I."
     'People are dying out there, Windu! Civilians. Children."
     'If your concern for children had included Korunnai, we wouldn't be  here
right now."
     'Is that what this is? Revenge?" The colonel sprang jerkily to his  feet.
"Do Jedi take revenge? How can you do this? How can you do..."
     'You  are  not  the  only  one,"  Mace  said  evenly,  "with   unreliable
subordinates."
     'Ah-" Geptun sank slowly back into his chair and lowered  his  head  into
his hands. A weak, sickly laugh shook his shoulders. "I understand.  I  didn't
misjudge you. You misjudged your people. This is all your mistake, not mine."
     'There will be plenty of guilt to go around. All that is important  right
now is the power to make it stop."
     'And you have this power?"
     'No," Mace said. "You do."
     'You think I haven't tried"? You think I don't have every person in  this
station working to deactivate those starfighters? Look  at  this-you  see  all
this?" Geptun's voice was going shrill. A  shadow-wave  of  a  trembling  hand
swept the images on the walls and ceiling. "These are land-line sensors. Hard-
wired. Want to see our remotes'?"
     He stabbed a control on the tabletop. All  four  walls  and  the  ceiling
fuzzed to eye-stinging white snow.
     'See?  Don't  you  see?  All  our  signal-jamming  controls  are  at  the
spaceport, too! Even if you wanted to order your pilots  to  stand  down,  you
can't. We can't  get  through-it's  out  of  our  hands...  We  are  helpless.
Helpless."
     In the white light from the screens, Geptun looked pale  and  disheveled.
His eyes were red and puffy. His lips were swollen as  if  he'd  been  chewing
them. Black sweat stained his blouse from his armpits to his belt.
     Mace said, "There is one more thing you can try."
     'Enlighten me."
     'Surrender."
     Geptun's laugh was bitter. "Oh, certainly. Why didn't I think  of  that?"
He shook his head. "Surrender to whom?"
     'To the Republic," Mace said. "To me."
     'To you? You're my prisoner. And you're wasting my time." His hand  shook
when he waved at the lieutenant. "Take them away."
     The big man shrugged. "You heard  him-"  the  lieutenant  began,  but  he
finished the statement with a sudden  yelp  of  surprise  and  pain  when  the
lightsaber he held ignited in his hand, the blade stabbing downward to drive a
smoking hole through his thigh.
     His hands opened; the pistols clattered to the floor and  the  lightsaber
flipped into Mace's palm. "You hold it like this," Mace said,  sizzling  blade
poised a centimeter from the end of the big man's nose.
     The two regulars behind them cursed and fumbled with their  rifles.  Nick
spun to face them and brought up his arms as both his pistol yanked themselves
through the air to smack into his hands. "Let's just not, okay?"
     The two militiamen, blinking and cross-eyed as they tried to focus on one
muzzle apiece, settled on the better part of valor. Pale  and  grimacing,  the
lieutenant sagged against the holoviewer at his back, clutching his thigh.
     'These are my terms," Mace  said  evenly.  "The  planetary  militia  will
immediately cease all operations in the Lorshan Pass. You will turn over to me
the starfighter control codes. And, as the ranking military  official-and  the
ranking officer of the Confederacy-you will sign  a  formal  surrender  ceding
Haruun Kal, and the Al'har system itself, to the Republic."
     'Colonel-" The lieutenant's growl was thin with pain. "Maybe  you  oughta
think about it. Y'know? Think about it. I mean, all the guys-we  got  families
here-"
     Geptun clutched the edge of the table, livid. "If I don't?"
     Mace shrugged. "Then I won't save your city."
     'How am I supposed to trust that you will? That you even can?"
     'You know who I am."
     Geptun trembled, and not from fear. "This is extortion!"
     'No," Mace said. "It's war."
     The formal surrender had been drafted, witnessed, and signed right  there
in the Intel station.
     'You know this has no legal standing," Geptun  said  as  he  affixed  his
signature and retinal print. "I sign this surrender only under duress-"
     'Surrender is always made under duress," Mace observed dryly. "That's why
they call it surrender."



     Mace set the comm gear to automatically make a  number  of  transmissions
the instant signal-jamming abated enough  that  communications  could  resume.
Many of the transmissions would be simple orders to the various battalions  of
militia to lay down their arms. More significant would be a HoloNet report  to
Coruscant with a copy of the surrender  agreement,  along  with  an  emergency
summons for a Republic task force. If the Republic could  get  here  in  force
before the Confederacy did, their landing would  be  unopposed.  By  the  time
signal-jamming would end, he'd have control of the starfighters;  even if  the
Separatists got here first, Mace would be in a position  to  make  the  Al'har
system uncomfortably hot for them.
     And if they  tried  to  land,  the  spaceport  controlled  the  planetary
defenses as well.
     Now all he had to do was control the spaceport.
     They had the whole platoon plus the armored groundcar  squad  for  escort
through the chaos of Pelek Baw.
     Geptun got them through the militia perimeter that stretched in  a  thick
arc among the burning warehouses, then Mace  stepped  out  of  the  groundcar.
"Nick. You drive."
     He shooed away the rest of the militiamen. Geptun started to follow them.
"Not you, Colonel. Get in the car."
     'Me?" The ride to the spaceport had given  Geptun  time  to  recover  his
composure; he looked almost his old self again. "You can't be serious! What do
you expect me to do?"
     'You'll transmit the deactivation codes. To make sure nothing goes wrong."
     'Why should I have to do anything... What will you two be doing?"
     Nick stared through the  windshield  at  the  spaceport  gates.  "Killing
people."
     Geptun looked at him, blinking as though he were expecting a punchline.
     Mace said, "Get in the car."
     'Really-I mean, please-I don't know what kind of man you think I am-"
     'I think," Mace said, "that you are a very brilliant man.  I  think  that
you have more courage than you have ever guessed. I think that you truly  care
about this city, and the people in it. I think your cynicism is a fraud."
     'What-what-really, this is astonishing-"
     'I think that if you were truly as corrupt and  venal  as  you  pretend,"
said Mace Windu, "you would be in the Senate."
     Geptun's blank gape hung on for one silent second, then gave  way  to  an
abrupt guffaw. Shaking his head, still chuckling,  he  walked  around  to  the
other side of the groundcar. "Here, young man, shove over. I'll drive."
     'You will?"
     'You might have to shoot people, yes?"
     Nick looked at Mace; Mace shrugged, and Nick slid over to  the  passenger
side. Geptun adjusted the pilot's seat to make himself comfortable behind  the
control yoke. "I suppose," he said with a vast theatrical sigh, "I am as ready
as I will ever be."
     Mace ignited his lightsaber.
     He lifted its blade, and stood for a moment, staring into  its  blaze  as
though he could read his future there.
     Perhaps he could.
     That killing flame might be the only future he had.
     He let it drop to his side but held it  alight,  and  walked  toward  the
spaceport gates.
     'Follow me."
     Geptun engaged the groundcar's drive system and let the  armored  vehicle
roll along behind the Jedi Master's deliberate stride.
     Turbolaser towers loomed to either side. From the city at his  back  came
the shriek of fighting ships cutting the air, the hammer of  weapons  and  the
rolling booms of exploding buildings, but beyond the  durasteel  bars  of  the
gate, all was silence and stillness.
     He reached the gate, and looked across the bare landing field toward  the
control center.
     Empty. Silent. Vast. The dayfloods threw stark white glare.
     His blade flashed. Durasteel clanged on permacrete.
     Mace walked into the spaceport.
     The groundcar rolled in after him.
     He had no idea what to expect here. He thought he was ready for anything.
He was almost right.
     One thing he didn't expect was the crackle of a helmet speaker  from  the
ground-level hatch of the turbolaser tower to his left.
     'General Windu! General Windu, is that you?"
     Three troopers crouched in the doorway.
     Mace called, "Yes."
     'Permission to approach, sir!"
     He waved them over, and they came at a run. They snapped to attention  in
perfect file. "With the general's permission-the sergeant sent us out  to  see
if it was you, sir!"
     'And it is," Mace said. "Me."
     'They said your ship blew up."
     'Did they?"
     'Yes, sir! They told us you were dead!"
     Mace Windu said, "Not yet."
     Mace stared at the bleak durasteel of the blast door  while  the  trooper
captain filled him in.
     The blast door was a full meter thick, and locked with internal bolts  of
neutronium. Its surface was smooth. Dull matte gray. From the outside, it  was
controlled by a code panel. The inside had a manual wheel. When the wheel  was
engaged, the code panel was useless.
     The command bunker was more secure than most treasure  vaults.  Only  the
swiftness of their assault had allowed Mace,  Depa,  and  the  Akk  Guards  to
capture it in the first place; the defenders had not  had  time  to  swing  it
shut.
     The brightly lit corridor seemed unreal. A full platoon of heavy  assault
troopers crouched in a tight arc on the white  tile  around  the  blast  door,
bolting tripods into the floor and charging weapons. Four more platoons waited
in reserve, two down either direction of the corridor. Mace stood in front  of
the door. Geptun sat on a heavy repeater's fusion pack,  white-knuckled  hands
clutching his armored datapad. Nick sat on the floor with his back against the
wall beside the door, eyes closed. He might have been asleep.
     The trooper captain was designated  CC-8,'349.  He  told  Mace  that  the
regiment had had no communication from the bunker  since  the  news  that  the
general had been killed; that was shortly after  Master  Billaba  had  ordered
them to use the spaceport's ships to draw the droid starfighters down upon the
city. The rest of the clone troopers had been ordered to stand ready to  repel
a militia infantry assault.
     Since then, there had been no communication from the bunker. No  one  had
entered. No one had left.
     Mace had a good idea how the inside of the bunker looked right  now.  Too
good an idea.
     A surge of dark power spread across the city like the  shock-front  of  a
fusion bomb.
     Behind that door was ground zero.
     'Makes you wonder," Nick said  slowly,  eyes  still  closed,  "just  what
they're doing in there."
     Mace said, "They're waiting."
     'For what?"
     He looked down at the lightsaber in his hand. "To see if I come back."
     Nick seemed to chew this over. He opened his eyes and pulled  himself  to
his feet. He shook his arms loose and hooked his  thumbs  over  his  gunbelts.
"Then I guess we shouldn't disappoint them."
     Mace frowned at the slug pistols holstered on Nick's thighs. "You  should
borrow a blaster."
     'Fine with these."
     'Blasters are more accurate. More stopping power." Mace's voice was grim.
"More shots."
     Nick drew his right hand gun, turning it over as though admiring  it  for
the first time. "Thing about slugs is, they only go one way," he said  lazily.
"Blasters are all well and good, but I don't particularly care to eat  my  own
shot. Slugs don't bounce."
     'Off a vibroshield they will."
     Nick shrugged. "Not off a lightsaber."
     Mace lowered his head. He had no answer.
     The sick weight that had gathered in his chest for so long now threatened
to crush him altogether.
     'Captain Four-Nine," he said slowly. "No one comes out of there  but  us.
Do you understand? No one."
     'General, we should go in first-"
     'No."
     'With the general's pardon: That's what we are for."
     'Your purpose is to fight. Not to die uselessly. Master Yoda knew  better
than to send troopers against a single enemy Force-user on Geonosis;  in  that
bunker may be as many as seven."
     'Eight."
     Mace glared at Nick. Nick shrugged. "You know it's true."
     The Jedi Master set his jaw.
     'Eight."
     He turned again to CC-8,'349. "I will go in first. Your men will enter on
my command. Two platoons. Come in shooting: blast  anything  that  moves.  But
this is not search and destroy. You're there solely to cover  Colonel  Geptun.
You will take all available measures to protect him, and  to  ensure  that  he
completes his mission.  His  mission  is  the  objective  of  this  operation,
understood? If he fails, nothing else matters."
     'Yes, sir. Understood, sir."
     'The rest of you will remain out here to hold the doorway.  If  you  have
to. And if you can."
     'Um, if I might  interrupt-?"  Geptun  coughed  delicately.  "Has  anyone
considered just how we are going to get z"?"
     'Just like we do everything else," Nick said. "The hard way."
     'Pardon?"
     'Shaped charges," Mace told  him.  He  turned  to  the  trooper  captain.
"Proton grenades. Blow the door."
     'General-!" CC-8,'349 stiffened to attention. "With the general's pardon,
sir, Commander Seven-One's still in there! With  more  than  twenty  men.  And
there are prisoners to consider, sir. Including civilians. If  we  use  proton
grenades, the casualties-"
     'There is no one in that room except the dead," Mace said  heavily.  "And
the people who killed them."
     He nodded to Nick. "Cover my back from the doorway."
     The young Korun drew Chalk's pistol from his left holster. He  held  both
guns low and loose, and nodded back.
     'Colonel Geptun."
     The plump little Balawai pushed himself  to  his  feet.  He  clamped  the
armored datapad under one arm but  still  held  it  with  both  white-knuckled
hands. One of his kneecaps jumped and shuddered, but his voice was  light  and
steady as ever. "Ready when you are, Master Jedi."
     'I can't protect you in there."
     'Lovely."
     'You won't be using the console. The transceiver  unit  itself  is  in  a
chamber below the bunker. I will provide access. Stay out here  until  I  call
for the troopers."
     'Certainly. I am in no, ah, hurry, if you take my meaning. I  have  never
been anything remotely resembling a hero."
     'People," Mace said with tragic conviction, "change."
     He ignited his blade. He held it with both hands.
     'May the Force be with us."
     He looked at CC-8,'349.
     'All right, Captain. Blow the door."



     THE HARD WAY

     Greasy smoke curled from the shattered blast door. It reeked of blood and
flesh and human waste.
     The smell of death.
     Mace stood next to the door, waiting for the smoke to thin.
     The command bunker was dark as a cave. The only light was the white shaft
that spilled in through the opening that used to be  the  door.  The  interior
materialized as though it slowly drew substance from the haze itself.
     Bodies were everywhere.
     Piled along the  walls.  Draped  over  the  banks  of  monitor  consoles.
Facedown on the floor in black pools.
     Some wore combat armor. Some wore militia khakis. Some wore no uniform at
all.
     Some were missing pieces.
     Mace's blade hissed in the smoke as he went inside.
     As a weapon, a lightsaber was uniquely tidy. Even, in a sense,  merciful.
Its powerful cascade of energy instantly seared and cauterized  any  wound  it
inflicted. The wounds rarely bled at all. It was a clean weapon.
     A vibroshield was not.
     The floor in the command bunker was treacherously slippery.
     Mace trod with care. Behind him, Nick slipped through the doorway and put
his back to the wall.
     All was silence and death. A  whole  different  world  from  the  madness
outside. Inside was a darker madness.
     So dark he might as well be blind.
     'Depa," he said softly. "Kar. Come out. I know you're watching me."
     His answer was a low, silky predator's growl that  seemed  to  come  from
everywhere at once.
     We don't have to be enemies.
     Mace brought up his blade. He moved cautiously around the  ruins  of  the
monitor bank closest to the doorway.
     Aren't we on the same side? We've won the planet for you, haven't we?
     Mace reached into the Force, feeling for the emptiness below  that  would
contain the transceiver. With each step, he  worked  his  feet  down,  seeking
solid footing on the floor before taking the next.
     Do you really want to fight us? We are kin, you and I.
     We are your own people.
     'You were never my people." Mace spoke without emotion. "A man  like  you
will always be my enemy, no matter whose side you're on.  And  I  will  always
fight you."
     Why do they name you a Master?  You  have  mastered  only  futility.  You
cannot possibly win.
     'I don't have to win," Mace said. "All I have to do is fight."
     A low snarl was the only warning he got.
     Nick's guns roared flame at  a  hurtling  dark  shape  that  leaped  from
nowhere. Sparks clanged in the gloom as Mace whirled instinctively and slashed
at the shape and it vanished in a dive that carried it over the console  bank.
Before he'd even seen what it was.
     He'd never felt it coming.
     Dark power swirled around him.
     He let his blade shrink away and crouched between two console banks,  his
heart hammering. "Nick!" he called. "Did you get him?"
     'Don't think so." Nick's voice came out thin and tight. "Sounded like  he
took both on the shields. You?"
     Mace smelled smoke: charred flesh. "Perhaps. A piece of him, any way."
     'See where he came from?"
     'No. I think-" Mace's breath hissed through his teeth.  "I  thin  they're
hiding among the bodies. Stay ready."
     'You better believe it."
     The low snarling growl became mocking. Your Force  can't  help  yo  here.
Here there is only pelekotan. And we are only pelekotani dream.
     Mace crept his way silently along the console bank.
     You didn't feel me coming at you. You can't.
     'That wasn't you," Mace said, low.
     But it was. One-seventh of me.
     Your pardon: one-eighth.
     He could feel the transceiver chamber now: two meters away o the far side
of this console bank. Its ceiling began a meter and a ha below the floor.
     You have lost her. Lost her to pelekotan. Lost her to pelekotan's drean a
world free from Balawai.
     Mace muttered, "We are all Balawai here."
     He triggered his blade just long enough to stab into the leg well  c  the
console under which he crouched, and carve an arch out of u  back  just  large
enough to crawl through. He pulled the cutaway piec free and laid it flat.
     On the far side lay a knot of dead clones. Four.  He  had  to  crav  over
them.
     Someone had taken off their helmets. Their eyes were open.
     Jango Fett's dead face stared at him four times over.
     Dead eyes looked into him and saw nothing but his guilt.
     He kept moving.
     The spot he needed was just ahead. Mace finally tore  his  attentio  away
from the dead clones, and froze.
     Someone had been carving the floor there already. Blackene hunks  of  the
command bunker's armor plating  lay  strewn  around  human-sized  pit  already
nearly a meter deep. Beside them, a slu  form  in  tattered  brown  robes  lay
crumpled on the floor.
     Her lightsaber was still in her hand.
     For one giddy instant, his heart  sang:  she  had  anticipated  him.  She
hadn't fallen to the dark-it had been an act, all  an  act't't  She  had  been
cutting through the floor to help him-
     But it was only one instant. He knew better.
     Of course she had anticipated him: she knew all there was to  know  about
his style. She'd known exactly what his target had to be, and she hadn't  been
cutting into the chamber below in order to help activate the transceiver.
     She'd been going there to destroy it.
     Looked like the proton grenade blast had caught her  just  in  time.  She
didn't seem to be breathing. In the blinding swirl of dark power  that  filled
the bunker, he could not feel if she still lived.
     You have gone very quiet, doshalo. Do you think silence can save you?  Do
you think that because you cannot feel me, the reverse is also true?
     Too much fatigue; too much pain. He had no room left  in  his  heart  for
more.
     He would grieve later. Now, looking at her corpse, he felt only a  vague,
melancholy relief that he hadn't had to kill her himself.
     Do you think there is anything about you I don't know?
     'I think," Mace said, "that if you were all you  claim,  I'd  already  be
dead."
     He pushed himself into a forward roll that brought him up  to  a  crouch,
and looked down into the hole. She'd done most of his work for him already. He
could cut through with a single stroke.
     You are not yet my kill.
     'No? Whose kill am I, then?"
     The answer to his question was a lightsaber's emitter jammed against  his
belly.
     Mace had time to think blankly: Oh. Not dead. Faking.
     'Depa-?"
     She screamed as she triggered her blade. And kept screaming as its  green
fire chewed a tunnel through Mace's guts and speared out his  back.  His  hand
seized hers instinctively, locking her blade against  his  body  so  that  she
could not kill him by slashing it free. His own blade ignited-
     But he could not strike her. Even now. Not here, so close he  could  kiss
her instead; not while her scream spiraled up into a shriek; not while he  had
to look into her wide staring eyes and see no hate  or  rage  but  only  stark
agony.
     He was going to have to do this the hard way.
     He struck downward into the pit beside them,  his  blade  slicing  out  a
lopsided ellipse of armor plate that dropped into darkness below  and  clanged
to an unseen floor.
     "Geptun!" he roared. "NOW!"


     Flashes of battle:
     - shadows fleeing the bunker as swarms of screaming electric blue blaster
bolts rebounding off walls shoot them to rags-
     - a flood of troopers spreading into a wave through the doorway,  weapons
gouting lightning-colored energy, Geptun in the middle of them, head down  and
running, datapad cradled like a baby in his arms-
     - a buzzing shield of silver flame that sliced through a blaster rifle so
that it exploded and took with it the trooper's hands-
     These images burned in Mace's brain as he fought for his life against the
woman who should have been his daughter.
     He brought his blade back up from the pit and turned  his  wrist  on  the
forehand so that  his  recovery  stroke  took  her  in  the  temple  with  his
lightsaber's butt. Her fingers slipped off the blade's activation plate and it
shrank back down through his body. She howled and punched his  eyesocket  with
her free hand, but Mace got his foot wedged between them  and  he  shoved  her
away with a powerful thrust.
     At the same instant both of them backflipped into  the  air,  landing  on
their  feet  poised  in  perfect  mirror  images,  their  blades  whipping  in
identically curving slashes almost too fast to see.
     Blaster bolts howled around them.  The  air  crackled  with  streaks  and
splatters of energy. Their blades flickered and whipped and  no  bolt  touched
their flesh.
     Their eyes never left each other's.
     Something had torn in his guts when he did the backflip.  Smoke  trickled
upward from the hole in his belly. He could smell it, but he felt no pain. Not
yet. His blade whirred through the air.
     Hers whirred faster. She advanced.
     The slashes never stopped. They would never stop. They  flowed  one  into
the next with liquid precision.
     This constant near-invisible weave of lethal energy is  the  ready-stance
of Vaapad.
     'Depa," Mace said desperately. "I don't want to fight you. Depa, please-"
     She sprang at him, screaming without words; he  couldn't  know  if  she'd
heard him. He couldn't know if language still had meaning for her.
     Then she was on him. His whole world turned to green fire.
     Twenty-four troopers entered the bunker in a wedge around Colonel Geptun.
Nick Rostu kept his back against the wall while he watched them die.
     Akk Guards leaped over and past them, and with every leap  another  clone
fell. The clones never stopped, never faltered, firing blaster  carbines  from
the hip, forcing their way forward over the bodies of their comrades.
     And it wasn't only clones who died.
     The Force nudged Nick, and he swung a pistol and fired without  thinking.
A leaping Akk Guard whirled and the slug banged sparks off his shield, but  in
the instant his attention was  diverted  he  fell  against  the  muzzle  of  a
trooper's DC-15 and blue energy exploded out his back.
     This Akk Guard had been a man Nick knew, as he knew them all. This  one's
name had been Prouk. He'd liked to gamble, and he once lost sixty  credits  to
Nick on a bet, and he'd paid it.
     Another nudge from the Force and another shot took out the knee of an Akk
Guard. He crumpled on top of a dying trooper, who still had enough  life  left
in him to hold down the trigger of his carbine and blow the akk to rags.
     This was the Guard whose nose Mace had broken. His name was Thaffal.
     Nick was waiting for his next shot when a massive shadow rose up right in
front of him; intent on the Force, Nick  hadn't  seen  him  coming.  He  said,
"Whoops."
     This one's name was lolu. He had saved Nick's life during  a  fire-fight,
once. A long time ago.
     'Hello, Nick," lolu said, and drove his  shield's  sizzling  edge  toward
Nick's neck.




     Depa's blade was everywhere.
     Mace backpedaled,  parrying  frantically,  absorbing  the  shock  of  her
attacks with bent arms and a two-handed grip. He was  taller  than  she,  with
more reach and weight, and vastly more muscle in his upper body, but she drove
him backward as though he were a child. Green flame struck through his  guard,
and only a frantic jerk of his head turned  what  would  have  been  a  brain-
burning thrust into a line of char along his cheekbone.
     Still he did not strike back.
     'I will not kill you," he said. "Death is not the answer to your pain."
     Her reply was a scream louder and more savage and an onslaught to  match.
She broke through his guard again  and  scorched  his  wrist.  Another  stroke
burned a slice through his pants leg just above the knee.
     Power roared around her, a rising storm of darkness.
     Mace got it  now:  as  each  Akk  Guard  died,  his  share  of  pelekotan
backflowed through the bonds Vaster had forged among them.
     She was getting stronger.
     And with each stroke of her blade, he could feel  himself  slipping  into
the shadows. He had to. She was too strong, too fast, too everything. The only
way he could survive was to give more of himself to Vaapad.  To  give  all  of
himself.
     To sink into pelekotaris dream.
     He felt it: he had reached his own shatterpoint. And he was breaking.



     The vibroshield flashed toward his neck.
     Nick's knees buckled and he bent backward like a drawn bow.  lolu's  fist
grazed Nick's nose as the horizontal vibroshield passed over the young Korun's
upturned face and bit into the wall so smoothly that the Akk Guard's  knuckles
hit as well; the unexpected shock  loosened  his  grip  on  the  vibroshield's
activator and its hum died, leaving it stuck fast in the wall.
     Before lolu could pull it back out, Nick flipped his pistol's  muzzle  up
against the Akk Guard's extended elbow.
     The slug didn't quite blow his arm off.
     lolu swayed, stunned.
     Chalk's gun in Nick's other hand came up under lolu's chin. "Never  liked
you anyway," Nick said, and pulled the trigger.
     The corpse fell against him.  Its  shattered  arm  slipped  free  of  the
shield's retaining straps.  Nick  pushed  himself  sideways  out  from  under,
looking for another target, and the dead Guard slid down the wall.
     Geptun was nowhere to be seen. He  was  either  dead  or  down  with  the
transceiver. Either way, there was nothing left to do but fight.
     A knot of clone troopers stood back-to-back, firing  desperately  at  one
lone Akk Guard who leaped and spun and slaughtered with demonic precision.
     No: not an Akk Guard.
     It was Kar Vaster.
     Nick leveled Chalk's gun. "This is for her,  scum-packer,"  he  muttered.
"Never liked you either."
     But her pistol was too heavy for him to hold steady. His  own  seemed  to
have gained a dozen kilos as well. "What the frag-?"
     His knees turned to cloth.
     He looked over at lolu's corpse. The other shield, one  that  still  hung
silent along his dead arm, was stained bright red. Dripping.
     Nick said, "Oh."
     He looked down. A huge diagonal gash opened his tunic across his abdomen,
and his legs were soaked with blood. He sagged back against the wall.
     'Oh," he said again. "Oh, nuts."
     And, in the end, he was just too tired. Too old.
     Too wounded.



     Through the trace of Force connection he had with  Nick,  Mace  felt  the
young Korun collapse. Something broke inside his head, and all his own  wounds
crashed upon him.
     Every cut and bruise, every cracked bone and sprained joint, the man-bite
on his shoulder and the hole through his guts:  all  of  them  blossomed  into
silent screams.
     His lightsaber went heavy, and his arms went slow. She  burned  a  stripe
across his chest, and he staggered.
     His fighting spirit wasn't destroyed. It wasn't even far away.  He  could
feel where it had gone. He could reach out and touch it.
     It was waiting for him in the dark.



     Lorz Geptun quivered uncontrollably. Crouched in the cramped chamber that
was filled with the refresher-sized tranceiver, he tried not to listen to  the
steady diminuendo of the blaster fire above. Each gun that fell silent was one
less man up there to protect his life.
     His hands trembled so badly  he  could  barely  punch  the  keys  on  the
codelock that sealed his datapad's armored shell. When he finally got it open,
he had to fumble in the inky shadows for the linkport on the transceiver.  His
shaking hands made inserting his pad's datalink resemble  threading  a  needle
with his feet, but he got it done.
     With a gasp of triumph, he keyed the droid starfighter recall sequence.
     Nothing happened.
     A moment later, his datapad's screen announced:
     ECM FAULT. UNABLE TO EXECUTE. ECM FAULT. ECM: Electronic Counter-Measure.
The signal-jamming was still on.



     In the Force, Mace felt Geptun's despair. It felt like a gift.
     Another man might even have smiled.
     He took one last look at the darkness that called to him-
     Darkness within mirroring darkness without-
     And turned away.
     He let his blade vanish. His arms dropped to his sides.
     Depa moved in for the kill.
     Mace backed away.
     She leaped for him, slashing, and  he  slipped  aside.  She  pressed  her
attack and he retreated, over bodies and through blaster-riddled  wreckage  of
console banks, until he came hard up against a console that still  had  power:
indicator lights flashed like droid eyes in the gloom.
     The blade of green fire whirled up, poised, and struck.
     He let himself collapse.
     He fell to the floor at her feet, and instead of cleaving his skull,  her
blade slashed the console behind him in half. Cables spat blue  sparks  across
the burned gap.
     This was the  console  that  controlled  the  spaceport's  signal-jamming
equipment.



     Down in the transceiver chamber, Geptun stared at  his  datapad's  screen
with astonished reverence,  conscious  of  having  been  unexpectedly  granted
undeserved grace.
     It read: COMMAND EXECUTED.


     In the skies over Pelek Baw, as the  snowcap  on  Grandfather's  Shoulder
kindled with the first red rays of dawn, droid  starfighters  disengaged  from
clone-piloted ships and streaked back into the depths of space.
     In the command bunker, the swirl of dark power crested, paused, and began
to recede.
     Mace lay on the floor. He didn't think he could get up. Depa stared  down
at him, her face lit jungle-green by the glow  of  her  blade,  and  a  single
needle of light seemed to pierce the dark madness in her eyes. "Oh, Mace..."
     Her voice was a moan of astonished pain. Her blade vanished, and her arms
fell limp and helpless to her sides. "Mace, I'm sorry-I'm so sorry..."
     He managed to lift a hand to reach up to her.
     "Depa-"
     "Mace, I'm  sorry,"
she repeated, and brought her lightsaber up to put  its  emitter  to  her  own
temple. "We shouldn't have come." 
     "Depa, no!"
     Mace found he did have the strength to rise, to stand, even to  leap  for
her, but he was exhausted, and wounded, and far, far too  slow.  She  squeezed
the activator plate.
     A single sharp report-like a handclap-rang out behind him,  and  a  spark
flew from the metal of her blade as it was smacked spinning from her hand.
     It twisted lazily through the air and clattered among the  wreckage.  She
blinked dizzily, as though she couldn't quite understand  why  she  was  still
alive, then crumpled to the floor. Mace turned toward where the sound had come
from. Sitting next to the corpse of a dead Akk Guard, his back propped against
the wall, one hand pressed to his chest to hold closed a horrible wound,  Nick
Rostu grinned past the smoking barrel of the pistol in his other  hand.  "Told
you..."
     "Nick-"
     'Told you I can shoot..." he said. His fingers opened and the gun fell to
the floor; his hand dropped on top of it and his eyes drifted shut.
     'Nick, I-"
     The young Korun was beyond hearing. Mace said softly, "Thank you."
     He swayed. He had to put out a hand to the wrecked comm console to steady
himself.
     The bunker had once again gone quiet and dark and full  of  death.  Quiet
except for a low growl.
     The growl came from a black shape that rose like corpse-fungus from among
the bodies.
     So, doshalo. Here we are. For the last time.
     'Perhaps."
     The shape smoked with power. More power than Mace had ever felt.
     And he was so tired. So hurt. The lightsaber wound in his belly  radiated
pain that scraped away his strength.
     The shadow beckoned. Come on, then: jungle rules.
     'On the contrary," Mace said slowly. "Jedi rules."
     What are Jedi rules'?
     'You don't need to know," Mace told him. "You're not a Jedi."
     Vibroshields whined to life. I am waiting for you, Jedi of the Windu.
     Mace extended a hand, and his lightsaber found it.
     He stood, waiting.
     'You fear to attack me.
     'Jedi do not fear," Mace said. "And we do not  attack.  As  long  as  you
stand in peace, so do I. You have just learned two of the Jedi rules. For what
little good they will do you. You haven't been paying  very  close  attention,
Kar. And it's too late to start now. It's over."
     Nothing is over! NOTHING. Not while we both live.
     'This is another Jedi rule." Mace took a couple of steps to one side,  to
find a space of floor where he didn't have to fear tripping over a  body.  "If
you fight a Jedi, you've already lost."
     The dark shape came closer. Fine words from a man I've beaten before.
     'The starfighters have been ordered off. The  city  will  stand.  They've
surrendered to the Republic. We have no reason to fight."
     Men like us are our own reason.
     Mace shook his head. "This isn't a big dog thing. If I must, I will  hurt
you. Badly."
     You can't bluff me.
     'No, but I can kill you. Though I would rather not."
     More Jedi rules?
     Mace sagged. "Do you have a move to make? I'm too tired for this."
     Sleep when you're dead, Vaster snarled, and leaped.
     Ultrachrome flashed. Mace could have  met  him,  blade  to  shields,  but
instead he slipped aside.
     He had no intention of fighting this man. Not here and now. Not anywhere.
Not ever.
     Vastor was younger, stronger, faster, and immensely more powerful, and he
wielded weapons that could not be harmed by the Jedi blade. Mace couldn't  win
such a battle on his best day, and this day was far  from  his  best:  he  was
exhausted, badly wounded, and heartsick.
     But the fact that his lightsaber couldn't hurt those shields didn't  make
them invulnerable.
     As Vastor gathered himself to spring again, Mace reached into the  Force.
The vibroshield stuck into the wall above Nick's  head  squealed  against  the
bunker's armor as it came to life and pulled itself free and streaked  like  a
missile toward Vastor's back.
     Vastor's incredible reflexes whirled him, and those same reflexes snapped
his shields in front of his chest in plenty of time to block-
     But they didn't actually block anything...
     There was a reason why, when Vastor's shields met to make  that  metallic
howl, he always brought them together back-to-back, instead of edge-to-edge.
     The flying shield's vibrating edge sheared through both Vastor's shields,
through both his wrists, and buried itself in the bone of his chest,  stopping
less than a centimeter short of his heart.
     Vastor blinked astonishment  at  Mace  as  though  the  Jedi  Master  had
betrayed him.
     Mace said, "You were warned."
     Vastor's head shook weakly, suddenly palsied. He dropped  to  his  knees.
You've killed me.
     He sounded like he couldn't make himself believe it.
     'No," Mace said. "That's another of the Jedi rules. Killing  you  is  not
the answer for your crimes. You're going back to Coruscant.  You're  going  to
stand trial."
     Vaster swayed. His gaze went blank and blind.
     'Kar Vaster," said Mace Windu, "you are under arrest."
     Vaster pitched forward. Mace caught him and  turned  him  face-up  before
lowering the unconscious lor pelek to the floor.
     Then he pulled himself back to his feet, leaning on the console.
     His vision grayed and lost focus; for a moment he wasn't  sure  where  he
was. This might have been Palpatine's office. Or the interrogation room at the
Ministry of Justice. The Intel station, or the dead room at the Lorshan Pass.
     Perhaps even the Jedi Temple... but the Jedi Temple wouldn't  ever  smell
like this.
     Would it?
     'Master Windu?"
     He remembered the voice, and it brought him back to the command bunker.
     'Is it over?" Geptun called tentatively from the transceiver chamber.  He
sounded very old, and more than a little lost. "Can I come out now?"
     Mace looked down at Kar Vastor, and the spreading pool of blood in  which
he lay. He looked at the scattered  corpses  of  clone  troopers  and  militia
techs. He looked at Nick Rostu, crumpled against the wall.
     'Master Windu?" Geptun's head appeared slowly over the rim of the hole in
the floor. "Did we win?"
     Mace looked at the sad, shrunken form of Depa Billaba, and thought  about
his victory conditions.
     'I seem to be," Mace Windu said slowly, "the last one standing."
     It was the only answer he had.


     AFTERWORD

     THE JEDI'S WAR

     FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU:


     I still dream of Geonosis.
     But my dreams are different, now.
     A Republic task force arrived to take possession of Haruun  Kal  and  the
Al'har system within forty-eight standard hours of my arrest of Kar Vaster; it
seems they had already been dispatched to answer  a  distress  call  from  the
acting commander of the Halieck.
     Their landing was unopposed.
     The Republic will not occupy Haruun Kal; acting  under  my  authority  as
General of the Grand  Army  of  the  Republic,  I  redesignated  the  Korunnal
Highland. It is no longer  enemy  territory,  and  Haruun  Kal  is  no  longer
officially a war zone. On my  recommendation,  the  Senate  has  declared  the
combat operations on Haruun Kal to be a police action.
     Because I have decided to treat the Summertime War as a  law  enforcement
problem.
     Which it would have always been, had the financial interests  behind  the
thyssel bark trade not been able to buy  off  certain  Senators  and  Judicial
sector coordinators.
     We are in the  process  of  disarming  the  jungle  prospectors  and  the
remaining bands of Korunnai guerrillas. It's going surprisingly well; the jups
are terrified  of  Republic  soldiers,  and  the  Korunnai  bands  are  mostly
exhausted and sick.  As  they  come  to  understand  that  they  will  not  be
mistreated, many simply surrender altogether. All charges  of  atrocities  are
being investigated. If those responsible  can  be  identified,  they  will  be
tried, and they will be punished.
     The planetary militia remains, though at greatly  reduced  strength.  The
militia regulars will now become what they should always have been.
     Keepers of the peace. Not soldiers.
     Many of them have volunteered to be inducted into the Republic Army.
     Including, unexpectedly, Colonel Geptun.
     He has not been charged with any crime. The vast bulk of  the  atrocities
committed against the Korunnai  were  done  by  jungle  prospectors,  not  the
militia. Even his threat of a massacre at the Lorshan Pass turns out  to  have
been a bluff. He never ordered any such thing; in fact, the militia's  written
rules of engagement specifically prohibit the targeting of civilians.
     Not only have I recommended he be accepted into the  Grand  Army  of  the
Republic, I have already written out his transfer to Republic Intelligence.
     We will need him.
     Nick-I should say, Major  Rostu-continues  to  convalesce  in  a  medical
center here on Coruscant. I do not know if I can keep  my  promise  of  a  job
teaching unconventional warfare, but I have no doubt we can find something for
him. I have submitted a recommendation to the Senate that his brevet  rank  be
confirmed.
     And that he be awarded the Medal of Valor for conspicuous gallantry under
fire, and actions above and beyond the call of duty.
     I have also assigned to Chalk a posthumous commission. Her real  name,  I
have learned only now, was Liane Trevval, and that name  will  appear  in  the
Senate record. I gave her the commission to render her eligible for  the  same
medal.
     I have no other way to express my respect for who she was.
     Her great akk, Galthra, has vanished. If an akk's Force-bonded  part  ner
dies, it is customary to put the beast down, for it is not uncommon  for  akks
who have lost their person to go insane, and vicious.
     Galthra went into the jungle. I can only hope she stays there.
     Pelek Baw will be rebuilt. There is too much money in the  thyssel  trade
for its epicenter to lie in ruins for long. The casualties-
     Are recorded elsewhere. It is a staggering number.
     No one on Haruun Kal will ever forget that night.
     Kar Vastor also continues to recover from  his  wounds.  His  hands  were
saved, and he is under detention here in the  Jedi  Temple,  where  his  power
cannot sway his jailers.
     He will not be immediately tried for the murder  of  Terrel  Nakay;  that
will only be filed against him in the event of his acquittal  on  his  initial
charge. For the trial of Kar Vastor, we have revived a category of crime under
which no one has been prosecuted in four thousand years: since the days of the
Sith Wars.
     Kar Vastor has been charged with crimes against civilization.
     And Depa...
     Depa will face the same charge.
     Someday.
     If she's ever declared competent to stand trial.
     After reading my report on Haruun Kal,  Supreme  Chancellor  Palpatine-in
his characteristically warm and compassionate  way-took  time  from  his  more
pressing duties to come to the Temple and look in on Depa personally.
     He was accompanied by Yoda and myself; the three of us stood alone  in  a
darkened observation room, watching through a holoviewer as three Jedi healers
attended to poor Depa. She hung suspended in a bacta tank. Her eyes were open-
submerged in bacta one has no need to blink-and they  stared  fixedly  through
the transparisteel at something only she could see.
     Depa has not spoken-has not moved-since her collapse. The  greatest  Jedi
healers of the Temple can find nothing organically wrong with her.  Bacta  has
cured her physical wounds; it cannot touch the rest.
     When the healers touch her through the Force, all they find is  darkness.
Vast and featureless.
     She is lost in infinite night.
     The Supreme Chancellor watched only for a moment or two before he  sighed
and shook his head sadly. "Still no progress, I take it?"
     Yoda watched me gravely while  I  struggled  to  find  words  to  answer.
Finally he sighed and took pity on me.
     'To end her life, she tried," he said. "Most tragic this is: to have sunk
so deeply into despair that she can no longer  see  light.  Yet  we  must  not
follow her there; hold on to hope, we must. Recover she may. Someday."
     Though perhaps I should not have admitted it, the truth  pushed  its  way
out of me. "I would almost have preferred to lose the planet, if I could  have
saved Depa."
     'And do you know what caused her breakdown?" Palpatine pressed  his  hand
against the holoviewer, as though he could reach through  it  and  stroke  her
hair. "I recall that learning this was one of  the  stated  purposes  of  your
mission to Haruun Kal, and yet your report offers no definite conclusion."
     Slowly, I admitted, "Yes. I do know."
     'And?"
     'It's difficult to explain. Especially to a non-Jedi."
     'Does it have anything to do with that scar on her forehead?  Where  her-
what did you call it?"
     'The Greater Mark of Illumination."
     'Yes. Where her Mark of Illumination once was. I recognize that  this  is
painful for you, Master Windu, but please. The Jedi are vital to the  survival
of the Republic, and Master Billaba is not the only Jedi we have lost  to  the
darkness. Anything we can  learn  about  what  might  cause  one  to  fall  is
incredibly important."
     I nodded. "But I cannot offer a specific answer."
     'Well, the scar, then. Was she tortured?"
     'I do not know. Possibly. It is also possible that the  wound  was  self-
inflicted. We may never know."
     'It is a pity," Palpatine murmured, "that we cannot ask her."
     Some few seconds passed before  I  was  able  to  respond.  "I  can  only
speculate in general terms, based upon what she  told  me,  and  upon  my  own
experiences."
     Palpatine's eyebrows twitched upward. "Your own?" I could  not  meet  his
gaze; when I lowered my head, I found Yoda staring up at me. His wise wrinkled
face was filled with ancient compassion. "Fall you did not," he  said  softly.
"From this, strength you can take."
     I  nodded,  and  found  myself  once  again  able  to  face  the  Supreme
Chancellor. "It's war," I said. "Not just that war, but war itself. When every
choice you make means death. When saving  these  innocents  means  that  those
innocents must die. I'm not sure that any Jedi can survive  such  choices  for
long."
     Palpatine looked from Yoda to  me,  his  face  a  mask  of  compassionate
concern. "Who would have thought  that  fighting  a  war  could  have  such  a
terrible effect on a Jedi? Even when we win," he  murmured.  "Who  would  ever
have thought such a thing?"
     'Yes," I could only agree. "Who would have thought it, indeed?"
     'Wonder, one must,"  Yoda  said  slowly,  "if  that  might  be  the  most
important question of all..."
     There followed a long, uncomfortable  silence,  which  Palpatine  finally
broke. "Ah, sadly, questions of philosophy must wait for  peacetime.  We  must
focus on winning this war."
     'That's what Depa did," I said. "And look what it did to her."
     'Ah, but such a  thing  could  never  happen  to-say,  for  example-you,"
Palpatine said warmly. His lips wore an enigmatic smile. "Could it?"
     I didn't tell him that it could. That it nearly had.
     I think about  that  a  lot,  these  days.  I  think  about  Depa.  About
everything she said to me.
     And did to me.
     I think about the jungle.
     She was right about so many things.
     She was right about her Jedi of the Future. To win this war  against  the
Separatists, we must abandon the very thing that makes us Jedi. Yes, we won on
Haruun Kal-because our enemy broke under the  club  of  KarVastor's  monstrous
ruthlessness.
     Jedi are keepers of the peace. We are not soldiers.
     If we become soldiers, we will be Jedi no more.
     Yet I do not despair.
     She was wrong about some things, too.
     You see, she got lost fighting someone else's war. She was fighting:  the
wrong enemy.
     The Separatists are not the true enemies of the Jedi. They are enemies of 
the Republic. It is the Republic which will stand or fall in the battles of 
the Clone War. 
     Even the reborn Sith are not our enemy. Not really.
     Our enemy is power mistaken for justice.
     Our enemy is the desperation that justifies atrocity.
     The Jedi's true enemy is the jungle,
     Our enemy is the darkness  itself:  the  strangling  cloud  of  fear  and
despair and anguish that this war  brings  with  it.  That  is  poisoning  our
galaxy. This is why my dreams of Geonosis are different now.
     In my dreams, I still do everything right.
     But I do in my dreams exactly what I did in that arena.
     If the prophecies are true-if Anakin Skywalker is truly the  Chosen  One,
who will bring balance to the Force-then he is the most impor-, j  tant  being
alive today. And he is alive today because my Jedi instincts were working just
fine. a;
     Because my mistake on Geonosis wasn't a mistake at all. f *
     If I had done as Depa said I should have-if I had won the Clone War  with
a baradium bomb on Geonosis-I would have lost the real war. The Jedi's war.
     Anakin Skywalker may be the shatterpoint of our war against the jungle.
     If he is-if Anakin is the being born to win that war-it does  not  matter
if every other Jedi in the galaxy dies.
     As long as Anakin lives, we have hope. No matter how dark it gets, or how
lost our cause may seem.
     He is our new hope for a Jedi future.
     May the Force be with us all.