Shatterpoint (звёздные войны)

by Matthew Stover

  She is their hope.

  [Rostu]: "It's true, y'know." Nick?

  [Rostu]: "You think things are bad here? Okay, sure: they're bad. Not just here here. The whole highland. Bad enough. But you got no idea what it was before Depa-y'know, we're not the bad guys here." No one has suggested that you are. Nor are you the good guys. I haven't seen any good guys.

  [Rostu]: "So far? I've seen one. No: two." You have?

  [Rostu]: "All that good guy, bad guy stuff goes out the air lock pretty fast, doesn't it? I mean, you know why Pelek Baw withdrew from the Republic? It's got nothing to do with 'corruption in the Senate' and all that political tusker poop, either. The Balawai joined the Confederacy because the seppies promised to respect their sovereignty. Get it? Planetary rights. And the only planetary right the Balawai care about is the right to kill us all. The seppies park their droid starfighters and support staff at the spaceport, and all of a sudden the militia has an unlimited supply of gunships, and the Balawai have made it illegal for a Korun to be outside the city limits of Pelek Baw, and pretty soon they start rounding up Korunnai from inside the city, too-not everybody, you understand, just the criminals. The beggars, and street kids. And troublemakers. For the record, a troublemaker is any Korun who says Word One about the way we're treated.

  "They had a camp for us. I was there. That's where Depa found us. You think things are ugly here? You should see what she saved us from.

  "So maybe we went from living there to dying here. So? You think there's a difference? You think that was better?

  "You go live in a cage if you want. Me? I'll die a free man. That's what Depa is to us.

  "That's who you're taking away." She would be leaving you soon, regardless.

  [Rostu]: "Says you." She is dying, Nick. The war is killing her. This planet is killing her.

  The Korunnai are killing her.

  [Rostu]: "Nobody here would ever hurt her-" Not on purpose.

  But she is drowning in your anger, Nick.

  [Rostu]: "Hey, I'm just mildly cranky." Not you personally. Ail of you. This whole place.

  The unending violence. without hope, or remedy.

  A Jedi's connection to the Force amplifies everything about us: it invests our smallest actions with the greatest conceivable weight. It makes us more of whatever we already are. If we are calm, it gives us serenity. If we are angry, it fills us with the rage of a god. Anger is a trap. You might think of it as a narcotic, not unlike glitterstim. Even the slightest taste can leave you with an appetite that never fades.

  This is why we Jedi must strive always to build peace within ourselves: what is within will be reflected by what is without. The Force is One. We are part of the Force; it will always be, at least partially, whatever we are.

  Just as it is too late for Kar Vaster to become a Jedi, it is too late for Depa to become a lorpelek. She is willing to give her life to help your people. Are you willing to take it?

  [Rostu]: "Hey, don't look at me like that. I'm onyour side, remember?" So.

  The Halleck must be insystem by now; we should be seeing a lander's vapor trail any minute.

  And Depa is headed up to meet us.

  [Rostu]: "She is? What, you can feel her?" Not directly. But-characteristically-part of her plan to keep Kar and his Akk Guards out of our way included retrieving my lightsaber. In details like this-these little considerations, her automatic kindness-I find my hope that she is not wholly lost.

  Though I can rebuild my blade, she- There was a sadness- Melancholy resignation: that is the best I can describe her expression, when she promised my lightsaber's return. Though the weapon is itself no great thing, she seemed near tears.

  "I could not bear for your journey here to cost you anything more than it already has," she told me this morning, as I left her to come up here to wait.

  I can feel clearly the approach of my lightsaber; and now I feel hers, as well. Winding toward us through the natural fissures in the rock that make a passageway from this cave to the interior caverns. It is odd-in an apprehensive, premonition-of-dreadful-tragedy sort of way-that I can feel Depa, the Depa I know, only in her weapon.

  [Rostu]: "Urn, does that appre-pre-whatever of dreadful tragedy by any chance translate into Basic as,' have a bad feeling about this? Because, y'know, now that you mention it-" I feel it too-but I have had only bad feelings ever since I came to this planet.

  [Rostu]: "I've been wondering-I mean, we've been up here a long time. Haven't you started to wonder if Depa didn't send us up here so she could get Kar out of the way? If she sent us up here to get us out of the way?" This has occurred to me. I have refused to allow myself to consider it. Depa is not like that; she is not given to trickery, much less betrayal. She has said she will join us here. That means she vv,'7,'join us. Here.

  She's only steps away- [Rostu]: "Or maybe, y'know: not." You.

  [Rostu]: "That's far enough. Stop! I mean it." [The final sound on Master Windu's Haruun Kal journal is a nonverbal vocalization similar to a large predator's warning growl.] [END JOURNAL] THE TRAP N

  ick stood in a classic shooter's stance, slug pistol in his right hand, left shoulder forward, right arm straight across his body, left hand cupping his right and the pistol's butt.

  His target was a needle-pointed grin just visible within the fissure at the back of the cave.

  Mace came to his feet smoothly but deliberately, without any sudden motion. "Don't do it, Nick." "I'd rather not," Nick admitted. "But I will if I have to." "I've seen him block blaster bolts. He can do the same with bullets. You won't have a chance." "Says you." Nick's voice was uncharacteristically calm and flat, and his hands were as steady as the mountain around them. "You haven't seen me shoot." "This is the wrong time to show me." Mace put one hand on Nick's arm and let its tired weight pull the pistol down. "Come on out, Kar." The darkness in the fissure gathered itself into the shape of the lor pelek. His vibroshields were pushed back onto his upper arms.

  In his hands he held two lightsabers.

  Mace sagged as all hope and faith drained out of him. Only exhaustion remained.

  He had been trying so hard, for so long, to believe in her, and in himself, and in the Force.

  He had made himself believe: he had ruthlessly disciplined his mind against any dread of failure.

  After all, this was Depa, his Padawan, almost his child-he had known her all her life- All but her first few months, and her last few months.

  Vaster walked past Nick without a sideways glance, holding the lightsabers on his open palms.

  A peace offering.

  She asked me to- "I know," Mace murmured.

  She said she did not want you to lose anything more by coming here than you already have.

  "I haven't." And it was true: he had lost nothing real. Not on Haruun Kal. He had lost her before he'd ever set foot on the shuttle's landing ramp. He had lost her before the massacre and the message on the wafer. He had lost her before he even sent her here.

  Depa Billaba was another casualty of his failure at Geonosis.

  She was just taking longer to die.

  All he had lost on Haruun Kal was an illusion. A dream. A hope so sacred that he had not dared to admit it, even to himself: a fantasy that someday the galaxy would be again at peace.

  That everything would go back to normal.

  Do you need to sit down, doshalo? Vaster's purr was guardedly concerned. You look unwell.

  "So this is the kiss-off, huh?" Nick had his gun back in its holster, but he looked like he was shooting at Vaster inside his head. "Pretty scummy trick, if you ask me." Tell your boy to mind his tongue when he speaks of Depa.

  Mace only shook his head silently. He was out of words.

  "I mean, that's low. And I know something about low, if you know what I mean. The kiss- off's bad enough, but to send her lightsaber along so you'd think it was her-" "That's not why she sent it," Mace said softly. "Kar's giving them both to me." Vastor's growl was absolute as a vine cat's stare: pitiless but
somehow not unsympathetic.

  She said you would understand.

  Mace nodded distantly. "She has no use for it anymore." Nick frowned at him. "She doesn't?" "It is the weapon of a Jedi." "Oh." "Yes." Mace lowered his head.

  "She's trying to tell you-" "Yes." Mace closed his eyes.

  He could no longer bear to look at this place.

  "It's killing her," he said faintly. "Being here. Doing these things If she stays, she will die." Everyone dies, doshalo. But Haruun Kal is her problem. This is he't't place. She knows it now. She belongs here. The jungle isn't killing her.

  You are.

  Mace opened his eyes to meet the lorpeleKs concentrated stare.

  She never stops thinking of you, Vaster rumbled. What is killing he; is imagining what you must think of her. What she knows you think o what she has done, and will do. She measures herself by your standards that your standards are fatally wrong doesn't make her failure to live uj to them any less painful.

  You are her sire, Mace Windu. Do you not understand how much sht loves you?

  "Yes." He wished she could understand how much he loved her.. But if she did, would she have done anything differently? Or woulc she only be in even greater pain? "Yes, I do." This is why she sent me to deliver these weapons, and her good-byes. Sh could not face you.

  Mace breathed a heavy sigh, then straightened his shoulders "She," he said slowly, sadly, reluctantly, "will have to get over that." Eh?

  "I'm sorry this is painful for her. It's not fun for me either; the closest thing to fun I've had on this planet was being beaten into un consciousness," he said. "I told her I would not leave this world without her. And I won't. Nothing has changed." You think not? Step out here, doshalo. The lorpelek walked out of the cave shadow into the brilliant red-smeared afternoon on the cliffside meadow. This is not the only cave on this mountain.

  Mace followed him, and Kar waved a lightsaber at the vast mountainside, pocked with shadows. In one of them waits one of my men. Over the past months, we have captured some heavy infantry weapons from the Balawai. One of those weapons is a shoulder-fired proton torpedo launcher.

  "Threats will not move me, Kar. I have told her that I will die here rather than leave her behind." You misunderstand. The torpedo is not for you; if I want you dead, lean kill you myself.

  "That," said Mace Windu, "remains to be seen." Soon the lander will arrive to take you away from here. If you do not leave on it, my man will destroy it. Your pilots, and gunners, and soldiers, and whoever else who has come to bring you away: they will all die.

  Now Mace did, finally, look into the sky. Limitless turquoise: the only clouds to be seen were vapor trails along the horizon.

  You see? You are not the only one here who can take hostages.

  "Do you know," Mace said wonderingly, "that I am almost grateful to you for this?" I understand: it makes what you must do much easier.

  "Yes. Exactly. You have made my choice for me." "What's wrong?" Nick asked from the shadows. "What's he saying to you? We're still leaving, aren't we?" "A great deal is wrong," Mace replied. "He has said nothing of consequence, and no, we are not leaving. Not without Depa." Vastor's head drew down, and his eyes flickered danger.,' do not make idle threats.

  "That you are here means I did not know Depa as well as I thought I did. That the two of you would expect me to bow to this threat means that she knows me even less." The lander will be destroyed. It will be as though you have killed them yourself.

  "There is no as though." Mace turned and lifted his head to look Kar Vastor in the eye.

  "What it will be is you, Kar Vaster, taking up arms against the Republic." The Republic has nothing to do with this. This is personal. You cannot pretend- "I placed Depa under formal arrest three days ago. She gave me her parole-that is to say, her word of honor as a Jedi that she would not attempt to escape, or otherwise avoid returning to answer for her actions before the Jedi Council. She has violated her word, and her honor. I must now take her into custody. And you, as well." Me? You are mad.

  "Kar Vastor," Mace said flatly, "you are charged with the murder of Terrel Nakay." "Uh, Master, mm, General-? Sir? You sure you know what you're doing?" Vastor stared in blank disbelief. Your men will die.

  "They are soldiers, and this is a war. They understand the risks they face," Mace said. "Do you?" What risks?

  "When your man fires upon the lander, you will have committed treason. Implicated in your crime, Depa will face the same charge. You are placing her in capital jeopardy: that is, she will be executed along with you." Vastor's growl did not now carry words. Only contempt and anger.

  "Perhaps you should order your man to stand down. While you still can." Depa is right: Jedi are insane.

  "Ever since I came to this planet, people have been telling me how crazy I am. They've told me this so many times that I had started to wonder if it might be true. Now, though, I understand: you don't say this because it's true. Not even because you think it's true. You say it because you hope it's true. Because if I am insane, you aren't really the revolting slime-hearted vermin that, down deep, you know you are." But Vastor no longer seemed to be listening. He had folded his massive arms so that the lightsabers in his hands disappeared behind his ultrachrome-shielded biceps. He paced meditatively away from Mace, strolling toward the meadow's cliff lip, and stared out over the vast roll of jungle below. The vista was alive with gunmetal specks and distant flashes of cannonfire.

  Many gunships patrol today, he hummed. More than I have ever seen.

  "Mace-" Nick hissed from the cave behind. "You know that bad feeling I was talking about? It's getting worse." "Yes." "Maybe you better get back in here where it's safe." "Nowhere is safe," Mace said, and walked out to join Vaster at the edge of the cliff.

  I have tried, Vaster purred when Mace reached his side. I have done all that can be asked of me. Not even Depa can say I did not try to spare your life. But you will not be reasonable. "It is not in my nature.",'/ is as you said earlier: you have made my choice for me. There is only one way to protect her from you. "That is true." Mace reached down inside himself until he found the calm center within his exhaustion and his pain. He breathed himself into that center until he was fully within it, and all pain and fatigue and doubt were left behind outside. "Do we fight, now?" We must.

  It is bitter, that we last men ofghosh Windu must be enemies. I wish this could have turned out differently, but I did not expect it would. Depa has told me that you do not lose well. "I haven't had much practice." Vaster bent his head in a regretful nod of respect. Good-bye, Mace, Jedi of the Windu.

  A tiny surge of the Force- Just a twitch. A shrug. The slightest nudge, not even directed at Mace; sent off somewhere into the trees below the pass-A signal.

  The scene, frozen in time, locked in the amber of Mace's Force-sense: Vaster standing with arms folded, not the slightest hint of threat, his shields pushed high on his arms, those arms still crossed to bury the lightsabers that he held under his massive biceps- Mace beside him, exposed on the lip of the cliff, unarmed- Gunships rippling the jungle canopy far below in shock wakes, silent with distance- Nick behind in the cave, rifle leaning against the rock, one hand yanking the butt of his bolstered pistol in a draw that to ordinary eyes would be blinding- And a man hidden in the shadows of the jungle a kilometer away, smoothly squeezing the trigger of a high-powered sniper's blaster rifle to send one single packet of murderous scarlet energy clawing up toward the meadow from the jungle below- Centered on Mace Windu's heart.

  All this Mace kenned in a single instant, effortlessly, and the shat-terpoint he found and struck by instinct was Vastor's balance at the lip of the cliff.

  Calmly, without any particular haste, Mace put his hand on Vastor's shoulder and gave the lorpelek a shove.

  Over the edge.

  Vastor's eyes bulged astonishment as he toppled forward and his arms uncrossed to windmill for his balance. His teetering swung his head just far enough in the right direction that the bullet
from Nick's slug pistol scorched Vastor's temple instead of blowing his brains out through his eyes; as his arms whirled, his grip on the lightsabers loosened. Mace reached into the Force, snatching them both, triggering them to flaring life and bringing them to his hands with an easy six or seven milliseconds to spare before he needed them to splatter aside the bolt from the jungle below.

  Vastor's vine cat reflexes whirled him in the air and latched his hands onto the rock face a meter below the lip of the cliff. His confederate in the jungle poured fire up at Mace to drive him back, while Nick ran out of the cave behind him, shouting "Did I get him? Is he dead1? Is he dead?" until Vaster threw himself back up into the meadow, bringing his vibroshields into fighting position with a surge of the Force.