Shatterpoint

However-as Mace had pointed out, down in the battered cavern base-droids were stupid.

That was not to say that they could not adapt to changing circumstances. They could, and did: often with a speed and decisiveness that no organic brain could match. These droids had comprehended they were under attack by "friendly" vessels before the initial flight of sixteen missiles had fully engaged their engines. An attack from a single friendly vessel might be a mistake, an accident, no more. But two vessels, both of whose transponder codes identified as friendly, had opened fire on them in a coordinated attack.

Without warning.

The droids would not wait for further attacks. They adapted with lightning speed, and remorseless droid logic.

And Nick Rostu, staring down into his widescan screen, didn't even notice his own jaw dropping farther and farther as first one, then a dozen, then a hundred and more, red scan-hits changed to blue. "They're going hostile," Nick murmured in awe.

"Yes." "All of them." "Yes." Two hundred and twenty-seven DSFs peeled off from the landers-whose silent guns had dropped them below the droid brains' threat horizon-and fell upon the sixty-nine Turbostorms in a tornado of destruction.

Gunships began to burn, and fall.

"You pla

"Yeah? What do we do now?" A dozen starfighters converged on them.

"Now," said Mace Windu, "we bail out." He took hold of Nick's belt. Nick stared at him in open horror. "Don't tell me."; "All right." A Force-pushed leap yanked them both out of the cockpit a full second before the gunship began to crumple under hundreds of ca

Nick's shriek sank unheard under the windrush and explosions.

Mace mouthed, You told me not to tell you.

Nick spent much of the ensuing fall complaining in a loud-though inaudible-voice about having to end his young life as "some fraggin' niklde nut-brained Jedi Master's straight man." Free-falling, one hand keeping a tight grip on Nick's belt, Mace reached into the Force and felt for his lightsaber.

He found its familiar resonance far below. Nick stayed locked in a fetal ball, hugging his thighs to his chest in a white-knuckled death grip and shouting obscenities between his knees.

Though he had a tendency to tumble, his tight "ca

They soared toward a target he could barely see: two kilometers below and a quarter-klick to the west, a gunship whirled toward the jungle in a flat spin, spewing thick black smoke. The DSFs were ignoring it, concentrating instead on the gunships that still fired and twisted and dodged in frantic attempts to evade them.

Depa was doing a fine job of appearing crippled and helpless.

Now and again some chunks of smoking durasteel or a hunk of re-pulsorlift would overtake Mace and Nick on their long, long fall, seeming to drift down past them at variously leisurely paces, according to their individual quotients of wind-resistance. No bodies passed them, though; Mace and Nick fell already at close to the terminal velocity of the human form.

On Haruun Kal, that was slightly less than three hundred kilometers per hour.

The gunships rate of fall was considerably slower; it only looked like it was going in out of control. Which was why, when Mace had towed Nick to within a few hundred meters above the gunship, a considerable exertion of his Force-strength was required to slow them enough to avoid a catastrophic splatter.

Nick had lifted his eyes only once, as they plummeted toward the roof armor of the gunship: just long enough to recall vividly what Mace had said about leaving a red smear on a windscreen. His head was tucked back securely between his knees when Mace brought them to a thumpingly unceremonious landing that sent them bruised and bouncing along the top of the spi

Mace's free hand lashed out with effortless accuracy and latched around the widescan sensor dish-mount; his other, still locked on Nick's belt, brought the young Korun to a stop facedown over what was still nearly a kilometer drop to the jungle.

"You. remember. back when we met?" Nick gasped breathlessly into the swirling winds.

"When you. just about broke my arm. with that fraggin' docking claw you use for a hand?" "Yes?" "I… forgive you." "Thank you." Mace hauled him up onto the gunship's roof. Nick wrapped both arms around the sensor dish mount. "You go on ahead," Nick told him. "I think I'll just lie here and shudder." Using the Force to steady himself on the spi

Chalk sat in nav; she looked up and swore. Vaster stood behind the cockpit chairs: his stare was cleanly fierce. Depa reached up to him from the pilot's chair with a warm welcoming hand on his. Her eyes were glazed with exhaustion and pain, but no surprise. "I thought you told me I'd only have to save your life once more." He said, "Excuse me." He rolled onto his back and reached behind his shoulders to grab the rim of the cut with both hands, then jackknifed and swung himself smoothly inside feet-first, without waiting to see if Vaster had gotten out of the way.

He had.

"Nick is on the roof," Mace said. "Open one of the bay doors for him." The troop bay doors of a Turbostorm swing out and down so they could be used as landing ramps. Depa keyed the starboard door to open halfway, making it into a kind of chute down which Nick could slide, then worked the controls to cancel the gunship's spin.

Mace nodded to the lorpelek, who now filled the cockpit doorway. "Kar: help him in." Why should I?

Mace was not interested in debate. He gave his head an irritated shake and waved Vaster aside. "I'll do it my." His voice trailed away, because Vaster had stepped aside, and Mace had moved to the doorway, and now he could see into the troop bay.

It was crammed with dead bodies.

Mace sagged sideways; only his shoulder against the jamb seal held him upright.

Depa had chosen a full ship.

His numbed brain couldn't count them properly, but he guessed there must have been twenty corpses in the bay: an infantry platoon. The pilot must have been young, excited, confident, sure of a glorious kill-so eager to get into the fight that he had sailed into battle without discharging his passengers. He had paid the price for that confidence; his corpse lay crumpled on top of what must have been the navigator's, just inside the cockpit door.