Shatterpoint

What if I do like thinking about all that stuff? What if I want those people dead? What then?" Mace went still. He stared off into the jungle, his eyes filled with its darkness. "Then I will beat you into unconsciousness," he said quietly, "and ask someone else." He looked at Nick.

Nick swallowed.

Mace said, "I won't tell you again." Nick mounted up.

"Kar Vaster," the Jedi Master said, looking again into the jungle, this time up the line of march where the lor pelek had vanished, "is not the most dangerous man on the Koru

A JEDI" S WORD T, he prisoners limped along in ragged knots, holding each other up and nervously eyeing the pacing akk dogs. Mace forced his way through the tangled undergrowth toward them, Nick close behind on the grasser.

"Am I missing something here?" Nick leaned over to speak softly, one arm bent across the back of the grassers thick neck. "Last night these ruskakks were trying to carve off a hunk of roast Windu." "This tan pel'trokal." Mace's voice was equally low and far more grim. "You approve of it?" "Sure." Nick glanced at the grasser that the children rode, and swiftly looked away. "Well, in principle, anyway." His vivid eyes went narrow and cynical. "Wasn't too long ago Kar used to just kill them all. Can't afford to feed 'em. What else should we do? Givin' them the justice was Depa's call." "Oh?" "Makes sense, don't it? If the Balawai think we'll kill 'em anyway, why should they surrender? Every one of them'd fight to the death. That gets expensive, y'know? So we give 'em to the jungle. At least they got a chance." "How many survive?" ome.

"Half? A quarter? One in a hundred?" "How should I know?" Nick shrugged. "Does it make a difference?" Mace Windu said, "Not to me." Nick closed his eyes and leaned his head against the grasser's ear as though exhausted, or in pain. "You've gone bats, haven't you," he said. "You're completely insane." Mace stopped. A twitch of frown drew a vertical crease between his eyebrows. "No. Just the opposite, in fact." "What's that supposed to mean?" But Mace was already walking away.

Nick muttered a curse on all fraggin" Jedi who used nikkle nuts for brains, then goaded the grasser along after him.

When the prisoners saw them coming, a man's voice said, "It's the Jedi. No, the other one.

The raz,"Jedi." Mace thought this voice might belong to the man he'd spoken to in the steamcrawler this morning: the gray-faced one with a chest wound and a missing hand, who would not believe in a Jedi's word.

Mace chose not to ask what he meant by the real Jedi.

Some few of the prisoners clustered toward him, straightening their clothing and forcing their faces into expressions of hope; most just stopped where they were, swaying with exhaustion or stumbling against the great gray trees. Some grabbed handfuls of vines to lower themselves slowly to the ground.

A few tens of meters downslope, the two Akk Guards stared up at Mace with undisguised hostility. Two of the six akk dogs on prisoner duty slouched sullenly nearby.

The children's grasser was led by a man whom Mace recognized as Urno and Nykl's father.

The only clean spots on his dirt- and blood-smeared face were the twin tracks from his eyes to his chin, rinsed white by tears. He dropped the reins and threw himself on the ground at Mace's feet. "Please-please, Your Honor-Your Highness-" he sobbed, facedown into the jungle floor, "please don't let them kill my boys. Do what you want with me-I deserve it, I know, I'm sorry for what I done, but my boys. it's not their fault, they didn't do nothing-please, I don't-I never met a Jedi before-I don't even know what I should call you-" "Stand up," Mace said sternly. "Jedi are not to be knelt to. We are not your masters, but your servants. Stand up." Slowly, the astonished man pulled himself to his feet. The back of his hand smeared a streak of mud below his nose. "Okay," he said. "All right. What's coming to me-I can take it like a man. but my boys-" "What's coming to you is your life, and possibly your freedom as well." The man blinked, uncomprehending. "Your Honor-?" "Call me Master Windu." Mace swept past him and opened his arms, beckoning to all the prisoners. "Gather 'round. I'll need you all to stick closer together. There will not be enough of us to look after stragglers." "Sir?" Keela said as the children's grasser caught up. She had twisted sideways in the lower saddle to stare at Mace with damp, bloodshot eyes. "Sir, what are they going to do with us?

Where's Mom? Are you go

You're going home. All of you." Nick muttered, "Don't make promises you can't keep." "I never do." "You don't think Kar and those Akk Guards down there are go

The swellings Vastor's fist had left on the man's face had gone as purple-black as the thickening clouds overhead. Muscle bunched like blocks of duracrete under the skin of his bare chest.

"Where going, Windu?" Mace had to tilt his head back to meet the Korun's stare. "I don't know your name." "You can call me-" "I didn't ask your name," Mace cut him off. "I jtjst don't know it. I don't need to. You should get out of my way." The guard's eyes looked scalded, and more than slightly crazed. "Out of your way, little Jedi?" "I am taking the prisoners to the steamcrawler track." Mace nodded in that general direction.

"I can go past you, or I can go over you. You pick." "Over me? Can fly, you?" The vibroshields strapped to his forearms snarled to life. He raised them to either side of Mace's face. "Draw your toy weapon, little Jedi. Go ahead. Draw." "My lightsaber? Why should I?" Mace raised a finger to tap his own forehead. "This is the only weapon I need." "Yeah?" A sneer: "What, think me to death, you go

The Korun staggered backward. Mace moved with him in perfect synchronization as though they were dancing, hands gripping the man's massive biceps. When the Korun started to recover his balance, his head naturally coming forward once more, Mace yanked on his arms, pulling him into another head-butt that brought Mace's forehead and the point of the Korun's chin together with a crack as sharp as a breaking rock.