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 thejung,'e, 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 jtjst 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-Ealawai 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 V

 

 

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 I

 

 

he 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." '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." ,'','/ 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 T, hey 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 MACEWlNDU 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." I

 

 

'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 N

 

 

ight 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.