Shatterpoint (звёздные войны)

by Matthew Stover

  "He's not some creature," Mace responded with reflexive certainty. "He's a boy. His name. his name is." His voice trailed away as his eyes finally made sense of what Vastor was pointing at. "Terrel." Besh and Chalk lay on the stone floor midway between where Vastor stood holding Terrel and where Keela, Pell, and the two younger boys cowered. The clothing of the thanatizine- bound Korunnai appeared inexplicably rumpled, even tattered, and over their torsos it glistened a wet oily black. A full second passed before Mace realized that it was the light from his blades that robbed color from the wet gleam on their clothes; he figured it out by the smell, strong even through the reek of the burning compound outside.

  It was the smell of blood.

  Someone had been hacking, inexpertly but with considerable enthusiasm, at the two helpless Korunnai.

  Hacking at two human beings Mace had sworn to protect.

  Hacking at sad Besh, who could not speak. Who'd lost his brother only yesterday.

  Hacking at fierce Chalk, the girl who had made herself strong enough to survive anything.

  Anything but this.

  They had lain down in this cold bunker floor and taken into their veins the drug that had swallowed them in a false death, trusting that a Jedi Master would watch over them to prevent a real one.

  On the floor below Terrel's dangling feet was a short stub of knife, smeared with the same dark blood. The blade was only half a decimeter long, its tip now a sharp straight slant- Terrel's knife. The one Mace had sliced in half on the slope outside.

  Strength drained from Mace's knees. "Oh, Terrel," he said, letting his lightsabers swallow their blades. "Terrel, what have you done?" Don't worry, was the meaning of Vastor's rumbling growl. He won't do it again.

  Mace threw himself into a Force-spring, both his blades blazing to life again as he streaked through the darkness toward Vastor's back-and in that instant he saw himself arguing again with Nick on the trail, heard again his orders within this shattered bunker, saw the steamcrawler carrying children teeter at the lip of the precipice, saw Rankin step into the circle of light, faced Vastor inside a steamcrawler crowded with wounded. He couldn't see what he should have done differently-what he could have done differently and remained the Jedi he was-to lead to any moment other than this one: this moment where he knew already he would be too late, too slow, too old and tired, too beaten down by the inexplicable cruelties of jungle war- Too useless to save the life of one single child.

  Mace could only roar a futile denial as Vastor struck. The vi-broshield sank deep into Terrel's body. And as the lorpelek ripped the life out of the boy, the blood fever told Mace what he should have done differently. man, only a man; a man of power, to be sure, but no longer the embodiment of the jungle's darkness. Terrel had been a boy, merely a child, yes, but a boy whose dead arms were still wet to the elbow with the blood of Chalk and Besh.

  Until now, Mace had looked at them-at this whole world, and all that he had seen within it-with Jedi eyes: seeing abstract patterns of power in the swirling chiaroscuro of the Force, a punctuated rhythm of good and evil. His Jedi eyes had found him only what he'd already been looking for.

  Without knowing it, he'd been seeking an enemy. Someone he could fight. Someone who would stand in for this war.

  Someone he could blame for it.

  Someone he could kill.

  Now, though- He looked at Vaster with his own eyes, truly open for the first time.

  Vaster looked back intently. After a moment, the lor pelek relaxed with a sigh, lowering his weapons. You have decided to let me live, was the meaning of his wordless grumble. For now.

  Mace said, "I am sorry." For what? Vaster looked frankly puzzled. When Mace did not answer, he shrugged. Now that I may safely show you my back, I will go. The fight is over. I must deal with our captives.

  He turned toward the bunker's door. Mace spoke to his back. "I won't allow you to kill prisoners." Vaster stopped, glancing back over his shoulder. Who said anything about killing prisoners? One of my men? His eyes took a feral gleam from the light of Mace's blades.

  Never mind. I know who it was. Leave him to me.

  Without another word, Vaster stalked out into the firelit night.

  Mace stood in the flickering dark, his only light the shine from his blades. After a time, his hands went numb on the handgrips' activation plates, and his blades shrank to nothingness.

  Now the only light was the bloody glow on the bunker's ceiling cast by the fires outside.

  He noted absently that Besh and Chalk hadn't bled much from their wounds. The thanatizine, he guessed.

  A low whimper from behind reminded him of the children. He turned and looked down at them. They quivered in a group hug so tight he couldn't see where one child ended and the next began. None of them returned his stare. He could feel their terror through the Force: they were afraid to meet his eyes.

  He wanted to tell them that they had nothing to fear, but that would be a lie. He wanted to tell them that he wouldn't let anyone hurt them. That was another lie: he already had. None of them would ever forget seeing their friend killed by a Korun.

  None of them would ever forget seeing a Jedi let that Korun walk away.

  There were so many things he should say that he could only keep silent. There were so many things he should do that he could only stand holding his powered-down lightsabers.

  When all choices seem wrong, choose restraint.

  And so he stood motionless.

  "Master Windu?" The voice was familiar, but it seemed to come from very far away; or perhaps it was only an echo of memory. "Master Windu!" He stood staring into an invisible distance until a strong hand took his arm. "Hey, Mace!" He sighed. "Nick. What do you want?" "It's almost dawn. Gunships fly with the light. It won't take them long to get here. Time to saddle-" Nick's voice stopped as though he were choking on something. "Frag me. What did you-I mean, what did they-who would-how-?" His voice ran down. Mace finally turned to face the young Korun. Nick stared speechlessly down at the bloody messes that were Besh and Chalk.

  "The thanatizine has slowed their hemorrhaging," Mace said softly. "Someone who's good with a medpac's tissue binder might still be able to save their lives." "And-and-and-are those children-?" him to the father of the two young boys. When Mace told him that Urno and Nykl were still alive and as safe as any Balawai here could be, the man burst into tears.

  Relief or terror: Mace could not tell.

  Tears are tears.

  Mace could summon no sympathy for him. He could not forget that this was the man who had fired the first shot into the bunker. Nor could he pass any sort of judgment upon him; he could not say that if this man had held his fire, any of the dead here would instead be alive.

  Rankin was not among the captives. Nor was the girls' mother.

  Mace knew neither had escaped.

  Rankin. Though he and Mace could not have trusted each other, they had been, however briefly, on the same side. They had both been trying to get everyone out of here without anyone dying.

  Rankin had paid the price of that failure.

  Perhaps Mace had started paying it as well.

  One more question to one more captive, and then the akks moved aside for him again.

  Vaster was nearby, growling and barking and snarling the Korunnai into groups organized for the withdrawal. In his disconnected state, Mace felt no surprise to discover that he could not now understand the lor pelek. Vastor's voice had become jungle noise, freighted with meaning but indecipherable. Inhuman^ Impersonal.

  Lethal.

  not because the jungle kills you, Nick had said. Just because it is what it is.

  Mace put out a hand to stop Vaster as the lor pelek swept by him. "What will you do with the captives?" Vaster rumbled wordlessly in his throat, and now again his meaning unfurled in Mace's mind.

  They come with us.

  "You can take care of prisoners?" We don't take care of them. We give them to the jungle.

  "The tan pel'trokal," M
ace murmured. "Jungle justice." Somehow, this made perfect sense.

  Though he could not approve, he could not help but understand.

  Vastor nodded as he turned to move on.,'/ is our way.

  "Is that different from murder?" Though Mace was looking at Vastor, he sounded like he was asking himself. "Can any of them survive? Cast out alone, without supplies, without weapons-" The lor pelek gave Mace a predator's grin over his shoulder, showing his needle-sharp teeth. I did, he growled, and walked away.

  "And the children?" But Mace was talking to the lorpeleKs departing back; Vastor was already snapping at three or four ragged young Korunnai. What he might be ordering them to do, Mace couldn't say; Vastor's meaning had departed with his attention.

  Mace drifted in the direction the last captive he'd spoken to had indicated. He stopped at the edge of a smoldering puddle of flame-projector fuel. It had burned nearly out; black coils of smoke twisted upward from only a few patches of dawn-paled flame.

  A step or two in from the edge of the puddle lay a body.

  It lay on its side, curled in the characteristic fetal burn-victim ball. One of its arms seemed to have escaped its general contraction. The arm pointed at the near rim of the puddle's scorch mark, palm-down, as though this corpse had died trying to drag itself, one-handed, from the flames.

  Mace couldn't even tell if it had been a man, or a woman.

  He squatted on his heels at the edge of the scorch, staring. Then he wrapped his arms around his knees, and just sat. There didn't seem to be anything else to do.

  He had asked that last captive where she'd last seen the girls' mother.

  He could not possibly determine if this corpse had once been the woman who'd given birth to Pell and to Keela; if this smoking mass of charred dead flesh had held them in its arms and kissed away their childish tears.

  Did it matter?

  This had been someone's parent, or brother, or sister. Someone's child. Someone's friend.

  Who had died anonymously in the jungle.

  He couldn't even tell if this corpse had been killed by a Korun bul let, or a vibroshield, or a Balawai blaster. Or if it had simply been unlucky enough to get in the way of a stream of fire from a steam-crawler's turret gun.

  Perhaps in the Force, he might have been able to sense some answers. But he couldn't decide if knowing would be better than not knowing. And to touch the Force again in this dark place was a risk he was not prepared to take.

  So he just sat, and thought about the dark.

  Sat while the guerrillas splintered into bands that melted away down the mountainside. Sat while the prisoners were marched off in a gang, surrounded by akk dogs. Sat while the sun slanted past a pair of northeast peaks, and a wave of light rolled down the slope above him.

  Vastor came to him, rumbling something about leaving this place before the gunships arrived.

  Mace did not even look up.

  He was thinking about the light of the sun, and how it did not touch the darkness in the jungle.

  Nick stopped on his way out of camp. In one arm, he carried Urno; Nykl slept against his other shoulder, tiny arms clasped around his neck. Keela stumbled along behind, one hand pressing against the spray bandage that closed her head wound while she used the other to lead little Pell. Nick must have asked Mace a question, because he paused at the side of the Jedi Master as though waiting for an answer.

  But Mace had no answers to give.

  When he got no response, Nick shrugged and moved on.

  Mace thought about the dark. The Jedi metaphor of the dark side of the Force had never seemed so appropriate before-less the dark of evil than the dark of a starless night: where what you think is a vine cat is only a bush, and what appears to be a tree may very well be a killer standing motionless, waiting for you to look away.

  Mace had read Temple Archive accounts written by Jedi who had brushed the dark and recovered. These accounts often mentioned how the dark side seemed to make everything clear; Mace knew now that this was only a delusion. A lie.

  The truth was exactly opposite.

  There was so much dark here, he might as well be blind.

  Morning sun struck the compound, and brought gunships with it: six of them, a double flight, roaring straight in from the stinging glare of Al'har as it cleared the mountains. Their formation blossomed into a rosette as they peeled off to angle for staggered, crisscrossing strafing runs.

  Mace still didn't move.

  Might as well be blind, he thought, and perhaps he also said it aloud- For the voice that spoke from behind him seemed to be answering.

  "The wisest man I know once told me:,'/ is in the darkest night that the light we are shines brightest." A woman's voice, cracking with exhaustion and hoarse with old pain-and perhaps it was only this voice that could have kindled a torch in Mace's vast darkness, only this voice that could have brought Mace to his feet, turning, hope blooming inside his head, almost happy- Almost even smiling- He turned, his arms opening, his breath catching, and all he could say was, "Depa." But she did not come to his embrace, and the hope inside him sputtered and died. His arms fell to his sides. Even prepared by what Nick had told him, he was not remotely ready for this.

  Jedi Master Depa Billaba stood before him in the tattered remnants of Jedi robes, stained with mud and blood and jungle sap. Her hair-that had once been a lush, glossy mane as black as space, that she had kept regimented in mathematically precise braids-was tangled, spiked with dirt and grease, raggedly short as though she had hacked it off with a knife. Her face was pale and lined with fatigue, and had gone so thin her cheekbones stood out like blades. Her mouth seemed lipless and hard, and bore a fresh burn scar from one corner to the tip of her chin-but these were not the worst of it.

  None of these were what kept Mace motionless as though nailed to the ground, even as gunships swept overhead and rained blaster-fire on the compound around them.

  In the inferno of explosions, amid the whine of rock splinters and the hammering webwork of plasma, Mace could only stare at Depa's forehead, where she had once worn the shining golden bead of the Greater Mark of Illumination: the symbol of a Chalactan adept. The Mark of Illumination is affixed to the frontal bone of an adept's skull by the elders of that ancient religion, as a symbol of the Uncloseable Eye that is the highest expression of the Chalactan Enlightenment. Depa had worn hers with pride for twenty years.

  Now, where the Mark had been was only an ugly ripple of keloid scar, as though the same knife that had slashed away her hair had crudely hacked the symbol of her ancestral religion from the bone of her skull.

  And across her eyes, she wore a strip of rag tied like a blindfold: a rag as weathered and stained and ragged as her robes themselves.

  But she stood as though she could see him all too well.

  "Depa." Mace had to raise his voice to even hear himself through the roar of the repulsorlifts and the laser cannons and the exploding dirt and rock around him. "Depa, what happened? What has happened to you?" "Hello, Mace," she said sadly. "You shouldn't have come." PART TWO INSTINCT FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU I finally understand what I'm doing here. Why I came. I understand the hypocrisy of that list of reasons I offered to Yoda and to Palpatine, in the Chancellor's office those weeks ago.

  I was lying to them.

  And to myself.

  I must have seen the real reason I came here in the first instant I turned to her in the compound: in the pain-etched creases below her cheekbones. In the scar where the Mark of Enlightenment had been.

  Yes: it wasn't really her. It was a Force-vision. A hallucination. A lie. But even a lie of the Force is more true than any reality our limited minds can comprehend.

  In the rag that bound her eyes but did not blind her to the truth of me- I found my conditions of victory.

  I didn't come here to learn what has happened to Depa, nor to protect the reputation of our Order. I don't care what's happened to her, and the reputation of our Order is meaningless.

&
nbsp; I did not come to fight this war. I don't care who wins. Because no one wins. Not in real war. It is only a question of how much each side is willing to lose.

  I did not come here to apprehend or kill a rogue Jedi, or even to judge one. I cannot judge her. I have been on the periphery of this war for barely a double handful of days, and look what I am on the verge of becoming; she has been in the thick of it for months.

  Drowning in darkness.

  Buried in the jungle.