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. I 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 Vastor: 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 j
ust 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 WINDU
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.”
I 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 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 Vastor 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 ha
nd, 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.”
The 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 Vastor.
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, Vastor 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.
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