Shatterpoint

He turned toward the bunker's door. Mace spoke to his back. "I won't allow you to kill prisoners." Vaster stopped, glancing back over his shoulder. Who said anything about killing prisoners? One of my men? His eyes took a feral gleam from the light of Mace's blades.

Never mind. I know who it was. Leave him to me.

Without another word, Vaster stalked out into the firelit night.

Mace stood in the flickering dark, his only light the shine from his blades. After a time, his hands went numb on the handgrips' activation plates, and his blades shrank to nothingness.

Now the only light was the bloody glow on the bunker's ceiling cast by the fires outside.

He noted absently that Besh and Chalk hadn't bled much from their wounds. The thanatizine, he guessed.

A low whimper from behind reminded him of the children. He turned and looked down at them. They quivered in a group hug so tight he couldn't see where one child ended and the next began. None of them returned his stare. He could feel their terror through the Force: they were afraid to meet his eyes.

He wanted to tell them that they had nothing to fear, but that would be a lie. He wanted to tell them that he wouldn't let anyone hurt them. That was another lie: he already had. None of them would ever forget seeing their friend killed by a Korun.

None of them would ever forget seeing a Jedi let that Korun walk away.

There were so many things he should say that he could only keep silent. There were so many things he should do that he could only stand holding his powered-down lightsabers.

When all choices seem wrong, choose restraint.

And so he stood motionless.

"Master Windu?" The voice was familiar, but it seemed to come from very far away; or perhaps it was only an echo of memory. "Master Windu!" He stood staring into an invisible distance until a strong hand took his arm. "Hey, Mace!" He sighed. "Nick. What do you want?" "It's almost dawn. Gunships fly with the light. It won't take them long to get here. Time to saddle-" Nick's voice stopped as though he were choking on something. "Frag me. What did you-I mean, what did they-who would-how-?" His voice ran down. Mace finally turned to face the young Korun. Nick stared speechlessly down at the bloody messes that were Besh and Chalk.

"The thanatizine has slowed their hemorrhaging," Mace said softly. "Someone who's good with a medpac's tissue binder might still be able to save their lives." "And-and-and-are those children-?" him to the father of the two young boys. When Mace told him that Urno and Nykl were still alive and as safe as any Balawai here could be, the man burst into tears.

Relief or terror: Mace could not tell.

Tears are tears.

Mace could summon no sympathy for him. He could not forget that this was the man who had fired the first shot into the bunker. Nor could he pass any sort of judgment upon him; he could not say that if this man had held his fire, any of the dead here would instead be alive.

Rankin was not among the captives. Nor was the girls' mother.

Mace knew neither had escaped.

Rankin. Though he and Mace could not have trusted each other, they had been, however briefly, on the same side. They had both been trying to get everyone out of here without anyone dying.

Rankin had paid the price of that failure.

Perhaps Mace had started paying it as well.

One more question to one more captive, and then the akks moved aside for him again.

Vaster was nearby, growling and barking and snarling the Koru

Lethal.

not because the jungle kills you, Nick had said. Just because it is what it is.

Mace put out a hand to stop Vaster as the lor pelek swept by him. "What will you do with the captives?" Vaster rumbled wordlessly in his throat, and now again his meaning unfurled in Mace's mind.

They come with us.

"You can take care of prisoners?" We don't take care of them. We give them to the jungle.

"The tan pel'trokal," Mace murmured. "Jungle justice." Somehow, this made perfect sense.

Though he could not approve, he could not help but understand.

Vastor nodded as he turned to move on.,'/ is our way.

"Is that different from murder?" Though Mace was looking at Vastor, he sounded like he was asking himself. "Can any of them survive? Cast out alone, without supplies, without weapons-" The lor pelek gave Mace a predator's grin over his shoulder, showing his needle-sharp teeth. I did, he growled, and walked away.

"And the children?" But Mace was talking to the lorpeleKs departing back; Vastor was already snapping at three or four ragged young Koru

Mace drifted in the direction the last captive he'd spoken to had indicated. He stopped at the edge of a smoldering puddle of flame-projector fuel. It had burned nearly out; black coils of smoke twisted upward from only a few patches of dawn-paled flame.

A step or two in from the edge of the puddle lay a body.

It lay on its side, curled in the characteristic fetal burn-victim ball. One of its arms seemed to have escaped its general contraction. The arm pointed at the near rim of the puddle's scorch mark, palm-down, as though this corpse had died trying to drag itself, one-handed, from the flames.

Mace couldn't even tell if it had been a man, or a woman.

He squatted on his heels at the edge of the scorch, staring. Then he wrapped his arms around his knees, and just sat. There didn't seem to be anything else to do.

He had asked that last captive where she'd last seen the girls' mother.

He could not possibly determine if this corpse had once been the woman who'd given birth to Pell and to Keela; if this smoking mass of charred dead flesh had held them in its arms and kissed away their childish tears.

Did it matter?

This had been someone's parent, or brother, or sister. Someone's child. Someone's friend.

Who had died anonymously in the jungle.

He couldn't even tell if this corpse had been killed by a Korun bul let, or a vibroshield, or a Balawai blaster. Or if it had simply been unlucky enough to get in the way of a stream of fire from a steam-crawler's turret gun.