Shatterpoint

Mace's jaw hardened. He found his balance again, and stepped over their tangled lifeless legs to move deeper into the bay.

All of the corpses in the troop bay wore the militia Graylite body armor; most of the armor had been burned through in several places by close-range blaster bolts. Mace could too easily imagine inexperienced militia men-boys-turning their weapons on Depa as she moved from the cockpit into the bay. The effect of opening fire with energy weapons, point-blank upon a master of Vaapad, was mutely testified to by every charred ring around a finger-sized hole in the armor, and by the burned and lifeless flesh beneath.

Between surprise, panic, and cramped quarters, half of them had probably shot each other.

Several of the bodies bore the characteristic blackened gapes of lightsaber wounds, instantly cauterized by the blade that had opened them. Depa's handling of the ball-turret gu

The corpses still sat there, dead hands locked around the dual grips of their quads.

And, of course, the smell: seared flesh and ozone.

There was no blood. No blood at all.

Every single one of these men had been dead before she'd ever picked up Chalk and Kar Vaster. Twenty-four men.

In less than a minute.

Mace turned around, and found Kar Vastor staring at him, fiercely triumphant.

He growled simply: She belongs here.

Mace silently turned away and climbed the half-open door to help Nick into the troop bay.

Sliding down the door into that compartment full of dead men struck Nick speechless. He could only crouch with his back against the slant of the door, trembling.

Mace left him there. He brushed past Vastor and reentered the cockpit. "Chalk. Give me your seat." The Korun girl frowned at Depa. Depa nodded. "It's okay, Chalk. Do it." As soon as he could settle into the seat, he leaned over the sensor screens, studying them intently. He felt Depa's eyes upon him, but he did not lift his head.

"You can say it, if you like," she said after a moment. "I don't mind." Keeping half his attention on the widescan to watch the droid starfighters shoot down gunship after gunship, Mace turned the other half of his attention to the gunship's data logs, calling up flight plans. Control codes.

Recognition codes.

"Really, Mace, it's all right," she said sadly. Half-blind with migraine, her breath coming a little short, she blinked dizzily through the remainder of the windscreen. "I know what you're thinking." Mace said quietly, "I don't believe you do." "It's not that my way is the right way. I know it isn't." A soft, bitter laugh. "I do know it. But it's the only way." "The only way to what?" "To win, Mace." "Is that what you call what you have done? Wi

And finally, he saw on the widescan screen what he'd been waiting for: the droid starfighters peeling away from the dogfight and streak ing back toward space, and the handful of surviving gunships turning to limp home.

"See that?" he said, opening his hand toward the screen. "Do you know what that means?" Depa nodded. "It means that someone figured out what we did." "Yes-and that this someone has the control codes for those starfighters." He turned toward her now, and in his eye was a spark that on another man would have been a wide fierce grin. "I told you: I don't have weeks or months to spare." "I don't understand-What are you doing to doT Mace said, "Win." He keyed the command frequency for the Republic landers. "General Windu for CRC- 09,'571. Stand by for verification and orders. Initiate simultaneous data link. Tightbeam." The comm crackled. "Seven-One here. Go ahead, General?

Depa was so astonished by the orders she heard Mace issue that she nearly crashed the Turbostorm into a mountain. When she had finally wrestled the craft back to stability, she flipped on the autopilot and faced her former Master breathlessly. "Are you insaneT "Just the opposite," Mace said. "Haven't you heard? There's nothing more dangerous than a Jedi who has finally gone sane." She sputtered like a droid with a shorted-out motivator.

"And if you don't mind, I'd like my lightsaber back," he added apologetically. "I think I'll need it." "But-but-but-" Finally the words burst out of her. "We're going to take Pelek Bawl1" "No," said Mace Windu. "We are going to take the whole system. All of it. Right now." DEJARIK I he ic key to the Gevarno Loop was the Al'har system. The key to Al'har was control of the droid starfighter fleet. The fleet was controlled from a secure transmitter below the command bunker of the Pelek Baw spaceport.

The spaceport did have a chance. But only one.

Two of the landers and their complements of troopers had been grounded at the Lorshan Pass, to establish a defensive perimeter around the lone open grasser tu