Shatterpoint

"I am sorry that I challenged you. I will never challenge you again." A twitch of motion in his peripheral vision: Nick had let Mace's vest unroll from his hand.

Now he held it alongside his leg. He gave it another suggestive twitch.

Mace could feel the lightsaber within it.

He met Nick's eye. Nick deliberately looked away, miming a nonchalant whistle, while he twitched the vest one more time.

A twist of the Force-no more effort than Nick expended to wiggle the vest-would bring that lightsaber to Mace's hands.

Mace said slowly, "Kar?" Vaster hummed a yes.

"My weapon is in that vest. May I have it?" He kept his eyes fixed resolutely on the,'orpe,'ek's chest. "Please?" Vaster released his shoulder with a contemptuous shove, and extended a hand for the vest.

Nick looked at Mace with open shock, as though he'd been unexpectedly betrayed.

Mace looked at the ground.

Vaster took the vest, and pulled Mace's lightsaber out of its pocket. This is yours?

"Yes, Kar," Mace said quietly. "May I have it, please?" Vaster gave a sidelong glance at an Akk Guard, and purred something. The guard smirked, nodding.

"Please," Mace repeated humbly. "It's my only weapon. I won't be much good to anyone without it." You're not much good to anyone with it, Vaster grunted. He held it out to Mace, but when the Jedi Master extended a hesitant hand to take it, Vaster flipped it carelessly away from him.

The Akk Guard he'd purred at snatched it from the air.

The guard held it in one hand. The vibroshield on his other arm whined to life.

"Hey, Kar, c'mon, lay off, huh?" Nick's face was twisted in an ongoing wince; it was painful to pity someone previously respected. "You won, didn't you? Isn't that enough? Why do you have to be such a-" Vaster interrupted the young Korun with a backhanded cuff that knocked him to the ground.

He never even looked at him; his gaze was still on Mace Windu.

The Jedi Master seemed not even to notice Nick lying on the ground, cradling his bloodied mouth, cursing continuously into his hand. "Don't," Mace said brokenly. "Don't. You don't understand-a Jedi's lightsaber-" Can be destroyed as easily as a Jedi Master. Vastor flicked his fingers as though brushing off a fly, but before the Akk Guard could bring the lightsaber's handgrip against the edge of his shield- "Kar." Through the gauzy opacity of the curtained howdah above, Depa's voice had an eerie power, and it seemed to come from everywhere at once.

"To send him out into the jungle without his weapon would be murder, Kar. He is not the enemy." Not your enemy. Perhaps.

"Please, Kar. Keep it safe for him, and return it to him when he departs." He is departing now.

"He ca

Keep his lightsaber yourself. You've shown him he ca

Glowvine light shimmered off the curtains, and nothing could be seen within.

Finally he gave an irritable shrug and extended a hand. The Akk Guard tossed the handgrip back to him, and Vastor tucked it into the waistband of his vine cat leather pants.

He cast Mace's vest to the ground at the Jedi Master's feet.

Did it hurt even more, knowing she was watching?

He no longer sounded mocking; this came in the tone of simple curiosity.

Slowly, painfully, like an old man protecting arthritic knees, Mace bent down to retrieve the vest. He said, "I'm not sure it could have hurt much more." You might remember that this all began because you refused to come when I told you.

This began, Mace thought, when I was summoned to the private office of Chancellor Palpatine. But he said nothing.

Because you refused to do what you were told.

"Yes," Mace said. "Yes, I remember." He picked up the vest and slipped it on. The sting of dirt in open wounds a

If there is a next time, doshalo, it will be your last time.

"Yes, Kar. I know." He looked at Nick, who was now sitting on the ground staring balefully at Vastor. "Come on," Mace said softly. "I'll need you to help me up onto the ankkox." FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACEWlNDU Vastor was willing to let Nick help me, and treat my more serious injuries with supplies from a captured medpac. He was willing to believe the battering he'd inflicted on me was nearly crippling.

It wasn't far from the truth.

Nick was still simmering as he helped me to my feet, muttering under his breath a continuous stream of invective, characterizing Vastor as a "lizard-faced frogswallower," and a "demented scab-chewing turtlesacker" and a variety of other names that I don't feel comfortable recording, even in a private journal.

"That's enough," I told him. "I have gone to considerable trouble to keep us both alive, Nick.

I'd prefer we stay that way." I

"Oh, sure. Nice job on that." His voice was bitter, and he didn't want to meet my eyes.

I told him I was sorry about his hundred credits, and pointed out to him gently that no one had told him to bet on me.

He turned on me then, instantly furious, hissing savagely to keep his voice down, as the Akk Guards and the dogs were still milling about. "This isn't about credits! I don't care about the credits-" He stopped himself, blinking, and his familiar smile flickered briefly across his lips.

"Shee. Did I really just say that? Wow. So okay, sure, that was a lie: I care about the creds. I care a lot. But that's not why I'm angry." I nodded, and told him I understood: he was angry at me. He felt like I'd let him down.

"Not me," he said. "I mean, come on: Jedi are supposed to stand for something, aren't you?

You're supposed stand up for what's right. No matter what." Angry at me as he may have been, he still swung his head under one of my arms and held it across his shoulders, so he could help me walk.

It was appreciated. Only as the adrenaline and concussion shock were wearing off did I begin understand what a beating I had taken; later, with access to the medpac's sca