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 upT 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 T, he 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 ,'orfe,'ek'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 fe,'ek'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?" ,'/ 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 Ealawai will offer me a dean, quick death?

 

 

'We're not talking about them," Mace said. "We're talking about Y 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." O

 

 

A JEDI'S WORD T, he 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 raz,'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?