Shatterpoint (звёздные войны)

by Matthew Stover

  he Highland Green Washeteria was an imposing verdigris-domed edifice of gleaming white tile set off by obsidian grout. When the groundcar pulled up to it, its sign was dark and its elaborate array of arched windows were sealed by durasteel blast shutters.

  A block away, the streets were choked with burning wreckage; here, all was dark and still.

  The squad's noncom peered dimly through the groundcar's windscreen. "Dunno why the colonel'd be here" he said doubtfully.

  "Maybe he wants a bath," Nick said dryly from the rear compartment, where he sat among the other four sweaty, tired-looking regulars. "Which wouldn't do any of you guys any harm either, I mean, shee." "He's here," Mace said from the front seat next to the noncom. "Let's get out." "I guess he could be here," the noncom admitted reluctantly. "Okay, everybody out." As the squad piled out onto the walkway, the noncom muttered, "I still think we shoulda tried the Ministry. And I probably oughta put binders on you, too." "There's no reason to go to the Ministry," Mace said. "And you don't need the binders." "Ahh, frag the binders anyway. Okay, let's go." The noncom tried the blast-shuttered door.

  "Locked." Purple energy flared. Durasteel sizzled. White-hot edges dulled to red, then darkened entirely. Mace said, "No, it isn't." The noncom used the barrel of his blaster rifle as a pry bar to swing open the door. "Hey, what are you guys doing here?" The broad sculpted lobby of the Washeteria had been turned into a heavy-weapons nest. A platoon of militia crouched, squatted, or lay behind temporary barriers of expanded permacrete.

  Tripod-mounted repeaters were levelled at the open door. The men's faces were drawn, their eyes round and haunted; here and there a rifle muzzle trembled.

  An oddly familiar voice replied, "A guy might want to ask you the same question." "Well, I captured that Jedi everybody's looking for, didn't I," the noncom said. "Here, come on in." Mace stepped around the open door.

  "You!" It was the big man from the spaceport pro-bi showers, and he didn't look frightened at all.

  Mace said, "How's your nose?" The big man went for his sidearm with an impressively swift draw.

  Mace's was faster.

  By the time the big man's blaster cleared his holster, Mace was staring at him past the sizzling purple fountain of his blade. "Don't." Nick said, "You guys know each other?" The big man held the blaster steady, aimed at Mace's upper lip. He said sourly, " Capturedhim, did you?" "Uh, sure, Lieutenant-" The noncom blinked uncertainly. "Well, okay, they surrendered, but it's the same thing, right? I mean, he's here, ain't he?" "Stand away from them. All of you. Right now." The squad scattered.

  Mace said, "I need to see Colonel Geptun." "Y'know, that's a funny thing." The big lieutenant squinted past his blaster's sights. "Because he don't want to see you. He told me specifically. About you. He said you might show up here. He said you're supposed to be shot on sight." "Shooting at Jedi," Mace said, "is a losing proposition." "Yeah, I've heard that." "Lieutenant, do you have a family?" The officer scowled. "None of your business." "Have you looked outside recently?" The big man's jaw tightened. He didn't answer. He didn't have to.

  Mace said, "I can stop it. Those ships your droids are chasing are piloted by men under my command. But if something were to happen to me…" The big man's chin drew down stubbornly. His men frowned at each other; some bit their lips or shifted their weight. One of them said doubtfully, "Hey, Lou, y'know-I got two kids, and Gemmy's up with another-" "Shut it." "Your choice is straightforward," Mace said. "You can follow orders and open fire. Most of you will die. And your families will be left out there. Without you. And without any hope other than that their deaths might be quick.

  "Or you can bring me to Colonel Geptun. Save hundreds of thousands of lives. Including your own.

  "Do your duty. Or do what's right. It's up to you." The big man ground out his words between clenched teeth. "You know the last time I could breathe okay?" he growled, pointing at his nose. "Guess. Go on. Guess." "Yours is not the only nose I've broken on this planet," Mace said evenly. "And you deserved it more than he did." The big man's knuckles whitened on the blaster.

  Mace lowered his lightsaber but kept its blade humming. "Why don't you call the colonel and ask? It is possible," he said with half a nod back toward the bloody chaos outside, "that he has changed his mind." The lieutenant's scowl thickened until it broke under its own weight. He shook his head disgustedly and let his gun arm fall to his side. "They don't pay me enough for this." He came out from behind the permacrete barrier and went to the house comm at the hostess desk. A brief conversation went on in undertones. When it was over, he looked even more disgusted. He returned his blaster to its holster and waved his empty hand at his men. "Awright, stand down, everybody. Put 'em away." While his men complied, he walked over to Mace. "I'll need your weapons." From behind Mace's shoulder, Nick said, "You don't have to take our weapons." "Don't quit your day job, kid." The lieutenant held out his hand. "Come on: I can't bring you down there armed." Mace silently handed over his lightsaber. Nick flushed while he dangled his pistols from one finger through each trigger guard.

  The lieutenant took both pistols in one hand, and weighed Mace's lightsaber in the palm of the other. He gave it a thoughtful frown. "The colonel said you're Mace Windu." "Did he?" The officer looked the Jedi Master in the eye. "Is it true? You're really him? Mace Windu?" Mace admitted it.

  "Then maybe I don't mind the nose so much." The big man shook his head ruefully. "I guess I'm lucky to be alive at all, huh?" "You," Mace said, "should consider a new line of work." The entrance to the Republic Intelligence station was a waterproof hatch; it was disguised as part of the checkered tile pattern on the bottom of a steaming mineral bath fed by the natural hot springs below the Washeteria. The lieutenant led Mace and Nick to a wading-stair from the deck down into the shallow end. Two sweating regulars brought up the rear, rifles slanted across their chests.

  Nick made a face. "Stinks in here. People really want to go in that?" "Not many, I bet," the big man said. "If they did, it wouldn't make a real good secret entrance, would it?" A concealed latch opened a code panel that swung down from the stair rail. The lieutenant tucked Mace's lightsaber under his arm so he could punch some keys, and the field generator built into the stairs and the pool floor hummed to life. An electric crackle heralded the opening of a channel; walls of sizzling energy held back the sul-furously steaming water. Toward the deep end the channel became a tunnel. Another code panel opened the waterproof hatch, and openwork stairs with drains beneath them led down into a dry, brightly lit room filled with the very latest electronic surveillance, code-breaking, and communications equipment.

  A handful of people in civilian clothes monitored the various stations like they knew what they were doing. There was an undertone of insistent muttering, and many of the console monitors showed only snow.

  The lieutenant showed them to a small gloomy chamber with holoviewer walls and a heavy lammas table in the center. The only light in the chamber came from the holoviewers: they showed realtime images of the city. The ceiling sparkled with swooping droid starfighters and the hurtling ships they pursued. Burning buildings cast a dull flickering rose-colored glow that silhouetted a small plump man seated at the far end of the table.

  "Master Windu. Please come in." Geptun's voice was thin, and the self-deprecating chuckle he offered had a fragile edge. "It appears that I miscalculated." Mace said, "We both did." "I never suspected that Jedi could be capable of such. savagery." "Neither did I." "People are dying out there, Windu! Civilians. Children." "If your concern for children had included Korunnai, we wouldn't be here right now." "Is that what this is? Revenge?" The colonel sprang jerkily to his feet. "Do Jedi take revenge? How can you do this? How can you do "You are not the only one," Mace said evenly, "with unreliable subordinates." "Ah-" Geptun sank slowly back into his chair and lowered his head into his hands. A weak, sickly laugh shook his shoulders. "I understand. I didn't misjudge you. You misjudged jour people. This is all your mistake, not mine." "There will be plenty o
f guilt to go around. All that is important right now is the power to make it stop." "And you have this power?" "No," Mace said. "You do." "You think I haven't fried"? You think I don't have every person in this station working to deactivate those starfighters? Look at this-you see all this?" Geptun's voice was going shrill. A shadow-wave of a trembling hand swept the images on the walls and ceiling. "These are land- line sensors. Hard-wired. Want to see our remotes'?" He stabbed a control on the tabletop. All four walls and the ceiling fuzzed to eye-stinging white snow.

  "See? Don't you see? All our signal-jamming controls are at the spaceport, too! Even if you wanted to order your pilots to stand down, you can't. We can't get through-it's out of our hands. We are helpless. Helpless." In the white light from the screens, Geptun looked pale and disheveled. His eyes were red and puffy. His lips were swollen as if he'd been chewing them. Black sweat stained his blouse from his armpits to his belt.

  Mace said, "There is one more thing you can try." "Enlighten me." "Surrender." Geptun's laugh was bitter. "Oh, certainly. Why didn't I think of that?" He shook his head.

  "Surrender to whom?" "To the Republic," Mace said. "To me." "To you} You're my prisoner. And you're wasting my time." His hand shook when he waved at the lieutenant. "Take them away." The big man shrugged. "You heard him-" the lieutenant began, but he finished the statement with a sudden yelp of surprise and pain when the lightsaber he held ignited in his hand, the blade stabbing downward to drive a smoking hole through his thigh.

  His hands opened; the pistols clattered to the floor and the lightsaber flipped into Mace's palm. "You hold it like this," Mace said, sizzling blade poised a centimeter from the end of the big man's nose.

  The two regulars behind them cursed and fumbled with their rifles. Nick spun to face them and brought up his arms as both his pistol yanked themselves through the air to smack into his hands. "Let's just not, okay?" The two militiamen, blinking and cross-eyed as they tried to focus on one muzzle apiece, settled on the better part of valor. Pale and grimacing, the lieutenant sagged against the holoviewer at his back, clutching his thigh.

  "These are my terms," Mace said evenly. "The planetary militia will immediately cease all operations in the Lorshan Pass. You will turn over to me the starfighter control codes. And, as the ranking military official-and the ranking officer of the Confederacy-you will sign a formal surrender ceding Haruun Kal, and the Al'har system itself, to the Republic." "Colonel-" The lieutenant's growl was thin with pain. "Maybe you oughta think about it.

  Y'know? Think about it. I mean, all the guys-we got families here-" Geptun clutched the edge of the table, livid. "If I don't?" Mace shrugged. "Then I won't save your city." "How am I supposed to trust that you will? That you even can?" "You know who I am." Geptun trembled, and not from fear. "This is extortion!" "No," Mace said. "It's war." The formal surrender had been drafted, witnessed, and signed right there in the Intel station.

  "You know this has no legal standing," Geptun said as he affixed his signature and retinal print. "I sign this surrender only under duress-" "Surrender is always made under duress," Mace observed dryly. "That's why they call it surrender." Mace set the comm gear to automatically make a number of trans missions the instant signal- jamming abated enough that communications could resume. Many of the transmissions would be simple orders to the various battalions of militia to lay down their arms. More significant would be a HoloNet report to Coruscant with a copy of the surrender agreement, along with an emergency summons for a Republic task force. If the Republic could get here in force before the Confederacy did, their landing would be unopposed. By the time signal-jamming would end, he'd have control of the starfight-ers; even if the Separatists got here first, Mace would be in a position to make the Al'har system uncomfortably hot for them.

  And if they tried to land, the spaceport controlled the planetary defenses as well.

  Now all he had to do was control the spaceport.

  They had the whole platoon plus the armored groundcar squad for escort through the chaos of Pelek Baw.

  Geptun got them through the militia perimeter that stretched in a thick arc among the burning warehouses, then Mace stepped out of the groundcar. "Nick. You drive." He shooed away the rest of the militiamen. Geptun started to follow them. "Not you, Colonel. Get in the car." "Me?" The ride to the spaceport had given Geptun time to recover his composure; he looked almost his old self again. "You can't be serious! What do you expect me to do?" "You'll transmit the deactivation codes. To make sure nothing goes wrong." "Why should I have to do anything What will you two be doing?" Nick stared through the windshield at the spaceport gates. "Killing people." Geptun looked at him, blinking as though he were expecting a punchline.

  Mace said, "Get in the car." "Really-I mean, please-I don't know what kind of man you think I am-" "I think," Mace said, "that you are a very brilliant man. I think that you have more courage than you have ever guessed. I think that you truly care about this city, and the people in it. I think your cynicism is a fraud." "What-what-really, this is astonishing-" "I think that if you were truly as corrupt and venal as you pretend," said Mace Windu, "you would be in the Senate." Geptun's blank gape hung on for one silent second, then gave way to an abrupt guffaw.

  Shaking his head, still chuckling, he walked around to the other side of the groundcar. "Here, young man, shove over. I'll drive." "You will?" "You might have to shoot people, yes?" Nick looked at Mace; Mace shrugged, and Nick slid over to the passenger side. Geptun adjusted the pilot's seat to make himself comfortable behind the control yoke. "I suppose," he said with a vast theatrical sigh, "I am as ready as I will ever be." Mace ignited his lightsaber.

  He lifted its blade, and stood for a moment, staring into its blaze as though he could read his future there.

  Perhaps he could.

  That killing flame might be the only future he had.

  He let it drop to his side but held it alight, and walked toward the spaceport gates.

  "Follow me." Geptun engaged the groundcar's drive system and let the armored vehicle roll along behind the Jedi Master's deliberate stride.

  Turbolaser towers loomed to either side. From the city at his back came the shriek of fighting ships cutting the air, the hammer of weapons and the rolling booms of exploding buildings, but beyond the durasteel bars of the gate, all was silence and stillness.

  He reached the gate, and looked across the bare landing field toward the control center.

  Empty. Silent. Vast. The dayfloods threw stark white glare.

  His blade flashed. Durasteel clanged on permacrete.

  Mace walked into the spaceport.

  The groundcar rolled in after him.

  He had no idea what to expect here. He thought he was ready for anything. He was almost right.

  One thing he didn't expect was the crackle of a helmet speaker from the ground-level hatch of the turbolaser tower to his left.

  "General Windu! General Windu, is that you?" Three troopers crouched in the doorway.

  Mace called, "Yes." "Permission to approach, sir!" He waved them over, and they came at a run. They snapped to attention in perfect file.

  "With the general's permission-the sergeant sent us out to see if it was you, sir!" "And it is," Mace said. "Me." "They said your ship blew up." "Did they?" "Yes, sir! They told us you were dead!" Mace Windu said, "Not yet." Mace stared at the bleak durasteel of the blast door while the trooper captain filled him in.

  The blast door was a full meter thick, and locked with internal bolts of neutronium. Its surface was smooth. Dull matte gray. From the outside, it was controlled by a code panel. The inside had a manual wheel. When the wheel was engaged, the code panel was useless.

  The command bunker was more secure than most treasure vaults. Only the swiftness of their assault had allowed Mace, Depa, and the Akk Guards to capture it in the first place; the defenders had not had time to swing it shut.

  The brightly lit corridor seemed unreal. A full platoon of heavy assault troopers crouche
d in a tight arc on the white tile around the blast door, bolting tripods into the floor and charging weapons. Four more platoons waited in reserve, two down either direction of the corridor.

  Mace stood in front of the door. Geptun sat on a heavy repeater's fusion pack, white-knuckled hands clutching his armored datapad. Nick sat on the floor with his back against the wall beside the door, eyes closed. He might have been asleep.

  The trooper captain was designated CC-8,'349. He told Mace that the regiment had had no communication from the bunker since the news that the general had been killed; that was shortly after Master Billaba had ordered them to use the spaceport's ships to draw the droid starfighters down upon the city. The rest of the clone troopers had been ordered to stand ready to repel a militia infantry assault.

  Since then, there had been no communication from the bunker. No one had entered. No one had left.

  Mace had a good idea how the inside of the bunker looked right now. Too good an idea.

  A surge of dark power spread across the city like the shock-front of a fusion bomb.

  Behind that door was ground zero.