I would have you know that I am proud to be your doshalo. You are a credit to the Windu.
Mace took a deep breath. "You," he said, slow, coldly deliberate, M),? arent.
It was Vastor's turn to silently stare.
"I am not Mace, Jedi of the Windu. Windu is my name, not my ghosh. You and I are not doshallai. The Windu are no more, and what you have done disgraces their memory. My ghosh," said Mace Windu, "is the Jedi." He went back to his preflight checklist. "It would be good," he said distantly, "if you were to be gone when I get back." Vaster had turned his face toward the spiral dance of the starfight-ers as Mace spoke; he did not seem to hear. He stared upward as though listening to the stars. He passed a second or two in silence and stillness, then he nodded gravely and looked back at Mace.
Until we meet again, doshalo. He spun like a startled branch leopard and sprang down from the Turbostorm's nose to sprint away across the floodlit permacrete.
Mace flicked the last ten switches into flight sequence, and the Turbostorm rocked gently as its repulsorlifts brought it up to an altitude of just under a meter.
"Let's go." By the time the Turbostorm roared through the spaceport gates into the warehouse district of Pelek Baw, it was already doing over two hundred kilometers an hour. The lightsaber gap in the windscreen shrieked like a bad wailhorn in a third-rate smazzo band. Immense night-blackened blocks of warehouses crowded the right-of-ways for a kilometer or more north of the spaceport, but the streets themselves were empty. Mace intended to take advantage while he could.
Nick held on to the backs of Mace's and Chalk's chairs, squinting doubtfully up through the windscreen's gap. "Uh, y'know, if you don't mind my asking, are you sure those droid starfighters won't come down for ground vehicles as well?" "I'm sure." "But, I mean, how do you knowT "I'll show you." Mace heeled the Turbostorm over, using its thrusters to help negotiate a tight corner; it bounced jarringly off a warehouse hard enough to dent its armor and knock a steamcrawler-sized hole in the building's wall. He fought the controls and steadied the ship, then nodded forward along the long straight stretch of street.
Half a klick ahead, the gigantic slope-armored hulk of a ground assault vehicle clanked out from a side street.
Mace said, "That's how." Its turret was already rotated the quarter turn to bear on the Turbostorm and Mace said, "Chalk," but she was ahead of him: the quad turrets on both sides of the gunship burst to life and filled the street with streaking packets of energy- Which crashed into the GAV without even scratching it.
Nick was shouting, "You'll never breach that armor!" while Chalk was letting her gaze defocus and her hands relax on the split yoke. "Not shooting at his armor, me," she murmured and she held down the triggers as the GAV's cannon bucked with the launch of an armor- piercing shell- That met a laser blast nose-first while still inside the barrel.
The explosion was gratifying.
It left the cannon's barrel peeled back on itself in a spray of black ened durasteel twists, making the GAV look like a droid smoking an exploding cigar.
"Okay," Nick said. "Now I'm impressed." The GAV's gunners opened up with its heavy slug-repeater, making riding in the Turbostorm resemble having one's head inside a durasteel trash barrel that's being clubbed by a pack of drunken squibs. Slug impacts pounded prismatic dents across the transparis-teel windscreen.
Mace said, "Time to get off the street." "You can't!" Nick shouted. "They'll shoot us down!" "Off, not up. Open fire." Chalk held down the quad triggers. Mace yanked the control yoke to slew the Turbostorm sideways and sent full power of both quads against the warehouse beside them. A huge mouth, teeth of dura-crete dangling from reinforcing bars, suddenly gaped in the wall, and Mace rammed the gunship through the gap.
Inside the building.
"Yow!" "Know what you're doing, you?" "Keep firing." Cargo containers flashed by them to either side, lit red by the blaze of fire from their guns, then another cannon-blasted mouth opened in the opposite wall and they broke out into the next street over- Which was also full of militia.
At least a company of heavy infantry, with a couple of mobile artillery pieces and possibly more out there that Mace didn't have time to identify because he just kept the gunship roaring straight on through the middle of them and into the warehouse across the street before any of the astonished Balawai could so much as charge their weapons.
Blasting through buildings when they had to, zooming along open streets when they could, zigzagging and backtracking to find gaps in the tightening net of heavy armor that was rolling through the warehouse district, they fought their way out into the city, leaving a wake of astonished Balawai and an immense connect-the-dots trail of burning warehouses.
Sometimes, when things go wrong, they go wrong one at a time: a chain of misfortune that must be dealt with link by link. Those are the easy times.
Sometimes troubles come in a starburst.
When they had finally broken free from the warehouse district, Mace brought the gunship down to a walking pace. The evening thoroughfares of Pelek Baw were crowded as always, but beings of all species hastily stepped aside for the idling gunship cruising through the city at street level.
At least, whenever they stopped staring long enough to move.
"Nick. Do you know where we are?" The young Korun leaned around him to stare out the windscreen; off to their port side, the sky was red with the light of the fires they'd left behind. "So much for the element of surprise." "Nick." Nick shook his head dejectedly. "Don't you get it? They know we're coming now. The Ministry of Justice is like afortress. Hell, it is a fortress. Not even you can get in there. Not now. Now they'll be ready for us." Mace said, "They always were. That's all right: we're not going there." "Huh?" "Geptun is smart. Possibly too smart for his own good. He knows we'll come for him; it's the only move we have. That's why we tracked his signal so easily: he wants us to hit the Ministry of Justice. If he were really in the Ministry, he could have found a way to mask his signal. There won't be anything there except a very large number of troops. Or possibly only a very large bomb." "Then what are we fraggin' doing out here? Where is he?" "A place with electronics sophisticated enough to fake the origination data of a comm signal," Mace said. "I may not be the dejarik player our colonel is, but there's nothing wrong with my memory. The one time we met, it was on the occasion of the death of someone he described as an old friend." Nick's eyes narrowed. "Tenk." he breathed. "You think he's at the Washeteria." "Can you get us there?" "Sure. Simple. All you gotta do is bear northeast-" He was interrupted by Chalk's hand on his arm.
She gave him a sickly smile, and her throat worked as though she were struggling not to retch. "Maybe. maybe better-" She coughed wetly.
Blood spattered from her lips.
"Chalk!" Her fingers dug into his arm: a spasm. Her other hand was pressed to her side. Her face was gray, and her eyes looked foggy. "Maybe better take nav, you," she said, and slumped.
Her hand fell away from her ribs, revealing a ragged hole below her breast. She crumpled forward against the nav chair's safety straps. In her back was an exit wound Nick could have put his fist into. The chair-back had an even bigger hole, and the cockpit wall behind bore a splash of blood and tissue and shreds of black synth-leather.
Nick threw his arms around her, holding her head up, pleading with her empty eyes. "Chalk, no, not you, come on, not you too, come on, Chalk, please-" Mace looked at the windscreen: at the line of rainbow-ringed slug dents from that first GAV: a line punctuated by the lightsaber-cut gap-She had taken that slug minutes ago. Without a word. Without a sound. She had held on-had fought on- Because people she loved were in danger.
"The medical center-" Nick's voice had gone thick. "The medical center's only a klick or two from here-" Mace's decision did not take even a full second. General or not, he was still a Jedi. "Just tell me which way to go." "Okay. Okay." Nick tore himself away from Chalk and pointed toward an intersection ahead. "Okay, go left at the corner, then-" The street in front of t
hem erupted like a chain of volcanos: explosions at the terminal points of scarlet particle beams that rained upon them from the night sky: aimed not at the street but at a hurtling dark shape that twisted through a barrel roll over the buildings before it took a direct hit and tumbled into a ball of debris-spewing fire that slammed an apartment block only a few dozen meters short of the Turbostorm.
The blast picked up the gunship and spun it down the street.
Of the unarmored groundcars, and the pedestrians, the taxicarts and street vendors, the elderly on their stoops and the children who had darted playfully around the tall lightpoles- Nothing was left but smoking rubble and twisted metal.
"What in the-" Nick reeled off an impressive string of obscenities. "-was thatT Mace wrestled the Turbostorm out of its spin and cut the engines; the ship skidded down the street trailing a fountaining tail of sparks. He leaned forward, his knuckles pale on the control yoke, and stared up through the windscreen.
"May the Force give me strength." he whispered: as close to a curse as he had ever come.
That hurtling dark shape had been one of the Incom Skyhoppers from the spaceport. The cannonfire that had rained on the street and brought down the skyhopper had come from droid starfighters.
The night sky was full of ships.
Above the city.
"Oh, Depa." Mace breathed.
More than four hundred thousand people lived in Pelek Baw. Drawing fire from the starfighters down upon it could put the entire capital to the torch.
No: not could.
Had.
The skyhopper wasn't the first ship to crash into the crowded streets of the capital tonight.
And there were over a hundred more, from tiny racing yachts to immense freighters.
He felt the city in the Force: a holocaust of flame and darkness.
Panic. Rage. Grief.
Horror.
There was nothing else left.
But the spaceport had a different feel entirely. "Depa, what have you doneT The comm panel chimed to announce an incoming voice-and-visual. Numbly, Mace reached past Nick and Chalk to hit the receive key. Scanning lasers in the comm unit traced a blue-lined image shadow on the windscreen: an electronic pre-echo of the larger-than-life holo-image projected into the burning night outside.
An image of a huge Korun with a shaven head and a smile like a mouthful of bone needles.
He growled, and Mace wondered how Vaster could expect to be understood-his Force- powered semi-telepathy wouldn't modulate a comm signal-but this little mystery instantly solved itself.
When the lor pelek growled, the dark storm that had swallowed Pelek Baw growled with him.
Thank you for giving us the city, doshalo. His smile spread like flames on oil. We have decided to redecorate.
Mace opened his mouth to ask for CRC-09,'571-and closed it again. The commander had been warned not to take orders from them.
They must have killed him.
"Kar, where's Depa?" Mace held his desperate horror locked deep inside his chest. "Let me talk to her." She doesn't want to talk to you. She doesn't want to see you. Ever. I have arranged matters so she won't have to.
"Kar, stop this. You have to stop this!" And I will. Vastor's lips pulled back from those needle teeth, and there was no longer even the pretense of a smile. When everyone is dead.
"You don't understand what you're doing-" Yes, I do. And so do you.
Mace's stare burned like the city around him.
He did understand. Finally. Too late.
He had no words for what he felt. Perhaps there were no words.
I called to say good-bye, doshalo. Depa will remember you fondly. As will we all. It is a hero's death you go to, Mace of the Windu.
Mace showed his own teeth. "I'm not dead yet." IlLfT OIU V Ll't't Vastor's blue-imaged head tilted a centimeter to the right. What time is it?
Mace froze.
A metallic clank echoed in his memory.
A clank that might have been deactivated vibroshields hitting the nose armor of a Sienar Turbostorm.
Or- Not.
"Nick. 1" Mace's sudden shout shocked the young Korun like a shot from a stun baton.
"Hang onf "Hang on to whatTT't'ti& arming levers on the seat ejectors flipped up; Nick swore and threw his arms around Chalk half a second before the triggers pressed themselves and explosive bolts blew the windscreen up and out and her chair shot toward the rooftops, out of balance and tumbling into the night sky as the time fuse on the proton grenade Vaster had mag-clamped to the Turbostorm's nose precisely where its shaped charge would blow a dozen kilos of shredded armor plate through the cockpit sideways- Detonated.
Mace found them by following his Force-link with Nick.
Double-loaded and out of balance, Chalk's ejector chair had carried them only as far as a black rooftop, flat and sticky with tar, before crashing to spill them across it. Flames from other buildings around lit its walls and cast its square shadow toward the stars.
Nick's silent silhouette knelt with bowed head beside her. His hand gently stroked bloody tangles of hair away from her face; tears from his eyes fell to her cheeks, as though death had finally allowed this tough girl to weep.
Mace stood at the roof's rim and looked out across the city.
His chair had carried him a dozen blocks away. He had come here on foot.
The streets were a nightmare.
Cannonfire rained at random. Missiles that had lost their targets blasted groundcars and streets vendor stalls. People ran and screamed. Many were armed. More carried bundles of valuables saved-more often looted-from burning buildings. Bodies lay sprawled on the pavement, ignored except for the curse they would get when someone tripped over them in blind panic.
He'd seen a little girl clutching the bloody tatters of a corpse's dress while she tried to scream life back into its body.
He'd seen a Wookiee and a Yuzzem locked together, clawing and biting and shredding each other, howls of terrified rage muffled by mouthfuls of each other's flesh and fur.
He'd seen a man not two meters in front of him chopped in half by a blasted-free hull plate that had fallen from the sky like a tabletop-sized cleaver.
From the rooftop, the capital of Haruun Kal looked like a night-shrouded volcanic plain: a vast dark field pocked with calderae that opened on hell. Clone-piloted ships streaked and spun and rolled, desperately dodging starfighters that swooped and dived and spat flame. In those contests it didn't matter who won; the city lost.
Pelek Baw had always been a jungle, but only in a metaphoric sense. Vaster had brought the real one.
He was the real one.
And he was eating this city alive.
"I always used to." Nick's voice was soft. Almost expressionless. Just slow, and faintly puzzled. He still knelt over her. "I used to, y'know, kind of think. y'know, maybe someday, when I leave this fraggin' planet." He shook his head helplessly. "I always kind of thought she'd be coming with me." "Nick-" "Not that I asked her, you understand. No. Not that I ever had the guts to say anything to her. About that. About-" He lifted his face to the cold distant stars. "About us. It just. it was just, y'know, just never the right time. And I kind of thought she knew. I hope she knew." "Nick, I'm sorry. I cannot tell you how sorry I am." "Yeah." Nick nodded slowly, pensively, as though each motion of his head welded another layer of armor around his grief. Then he sucked air through his teeth and shoved himself to his feet. "Lots of people are sorry tonight." He had her gunbelt in his hands.
He moved to the roof rim to stand beside Mace and look out across the burning city.
"They're all against us now," he said softly. "Not just the militia and the droids." "Yes." He buckled Chalk's gunbelt around his waist, and tied her holster down to his left thigh, to match his own on his right. "They've turned on us. All of them. Kar and his Akks. Depa. Even the clones." "The clones," Mace said distantly, "are only following orders." "Orders from our enemies." Now it was Mace's turn to lower his head: Mace's turn to
nod layers of armor around his own grief. "Yes." "And on our side-it's us. You and me. Nobody else." He drew her gun, smooth and fast, checking its heft and balance. He popped the clip and snapped it back in. "Y'know, Kar saved her life." He spun the pistol forward, then reversed it so that its own spin slipped it snugly into the holster. "Temporarily." Mace murmured, "It's always temporary." He stared down into the pandemonium on the street. An armored groundcar filled with militia swung around a corner. The gunner on the roof-mounted EWHB-10 fired short bursts into the air to clear the road; some of the armed looters returned fire.
Nick said softly, "You got any idea what we're gonna do?" Before Mace could speak, Nick smiled tiredly and raised a hand. "Don't bother. I know what you're about to say." "I don't think you do." Mace gave the militia vehicle below a speculative frown.
"We're going to surrender." SURRENDER T
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