Shatterpoint

Chalk glanced at Mace from time to time. What's with Jedi Rockface? she asked the others generally. I don't like him. He looks the same when he's cleaning his weapons as he did while he was using them. Makes me nervous.

Nick shrugged at her. Would you be happier if he was like Depa? Count your blessings.

And mind your mouth: she said he spent some time upcountry a few years ago. He might still speak some Koruun.

Chalk's only response was a bleak silent scowl that twisted in Mace's stomach like a knife.

Like Depa.

He burned to ask what Nick had meant by that-but he wouldn't. He couldn't. He couldn't ask them about Depa. He was half sick with dread already, which was no state in which to meet his former Padawan and examine her mental and moral health; he would need as clear and open a mind as all his Jedi training and discipline could produce. He couldn't risk contaminating his perceptions with expectations or hopes or fears.

They bounced and swayed through a part of town Mace didn't recognize: a tangle of shabby stone housing blocks that rose from a scree of wood-frame shanties. Though the streets were far less crowded here-the only foot traffic seemed to be surly, ragged-looking men, and furtive women peering from doorways or clustered in nervous groups-the groundcar still spent valuable minutes stopped at this corner and that bend and another angle, waiting in the blare of the steam horn for the way to clear. They'd have made better time in an airspeeder, but Mace didn't suggest it; flying, on this world, struck him as a chancy undertaking.

Though he couldn't say for certain that it would be any more chancy than spending more time with these young Koru

And then there was Nick, who was at best marginally sane.

Back in the alley, standing among the corpses with the militia on the way, Mace had asked where their transport was, and why they weren't hurrying to meet it; he didn't want to get caught in another firefight.

"Relax. Neither do they." Nick had smirked at him. "What d'you think those sirens are about? They're letting us know they're com ing." "They don't try to catch you?" "If they did, they'd have to fight us." He'd stroked his long-barreled slugthrower as though it were a pet. "Think they're go

"It's mine-" "It's junk," Nick countered. He picked it up. "Here, look." He'd pointed it at Mace's forehead and pulled the trigger.

Mace managed not to flinch. Barely.

A wisp of greenish smoke had trailed downward from the grip.

Nick had shrugged and tossed the blaster back to the ground. "Fungus got it. Just like that second speeder bike. Some of those circuits are only nanometers thick; a few spores can eat right through? em.

"That," Mace had told him, "was not fu

Though he felt no malice from them, he'd felt none from Geptun, either. But he did feel knotted around them a strangling web of anger and fear and pain.

Koru

And those buried emotions were already stirring to answer.

He recognized that he was in danger here. In ways deeper than the merely physical.

Now, sitting in the groundcar, waiting for his lightsaber to recharge, Mace decided that he should get some things straight with these four young Koru

"I think we'll all speak Basic now," Mace said. "Any being will soon enough tire of listening to conversation in a foreign tongue." Which was not even a lie.

Chalk gave him a dark look. "Here, Basic is foreign tongue." "Fair enough," Mace allowed. "Nonetheless: when I am in your company, that is what we will speak." "Shee, pretty free with the orders, aren't we? No murder, no looting, speak Basic." Nick said. "Who said you're in charge? And if we don't feel like doing what we're told? What's it go

This was greeted with a round of half-pitying sneers and snorts and shaken heads.

Mace looked at Nick. "Do you doubt my ability to maintain a grip on the situation?" "Oh, very fu

"I won't bore you with the complexities of chain of command," Mace said. "I'll stick to facts.

Simple facts. Straightforward. Easy to understand. Like this one: Master Billaba sent you here to bring me to her." "Says who?" "If she wanted me dead, you'd have left me in that alley. She wouldn't have sent you to divert or ditch me. She knows you're not good enough for that." "Says you." "You're under orders to deliver me." "Depa doesn't exactly give orders," Nick said. "It's more like, she just lets you know what she thinks you should do. And then you do it." Mace shrugged. "Do you intend to disappoint her?" The uncertain looks they now exchanged drove that sick knife deeper into Mace's gut. They feared her-or something to do with her-in a way that they did not fear him. Nick said, "So?" "So you need my cooperation." Mace checked the meter on the blasterpack: this one was depleted. He pulled the adapter out of his lightsaber's charge port.

Nick sat forward, a dangerous glint sparking in his blue eyes. "Who says we need your cooperation? Who says we can't just pack you up and send you Jedi Free Delivery?" Instead of hooking in the next blasterpack, Mace balanced the lightsaber's handgrip on his palm. "I do." Another glance made the rounds, and Mace felt swift currents ripple the Force back and forth among them. The brothers blanched. Chalk's knuckles whitened on the Thunderbolt.

Nick's face went perfectly blank. Their hands shifted on their rifles. Mace hefted the lightsaber.

"Reconsider." He watched each of them mentally calculate the odds of bringing a weapon to bear in the cramped cabin before he could trigger his blade. "Your chances come in two shapes," he said.