true.' The Jedi Master set his jaw.
'Eight.' He turned again to CC-8,'349. 'I will go in first. Your men will enter on my command. Two platoons. Come in shooting: blast anything that moves. But this is not search and destroy.
You're there solely to cover Colonel Geptun. You will take all available measures to protect him, and to ensure that he completes his mission. His mission is the objective of this operation, understood? If he fails, nothing else matters.' 'Yes, sir. Understood, sir.' 'The rest of you will remain out here to hold the doorway. If you have to. And if you can.' 'Um, if I might interrupt-?' Geptun coughed delicately. 'Has anyone considered just how we are going to get zR?' 'Just like we do everything else,' Nick said. 'The hard way.' 'Pardon?' 'Shaped charges,' Mace told him. He turned to the trooper captain. 'Proton grenades. Blow the door.' 'General-!' CC-8,'349 stiffened to attention. 'With the general's pardon, sir, Commander Seven-One's still in there! With more than twenty men. And there are prisoners to consider, sir.
Including civilians. If we use proton grenades, the casualties-' 'There is no one in that room except the dead,' Mace said heavily. 'And the people who killed them.' He nodded to Nick. 'Cover my back from the doorway.' The young Korun drew Chalk's pistol from his left holster. He held both guns low and loose, and nodded back.
'Colonel Geptun.' The plump little Balawai pushed himself to his feet. He clamped the armored datapad under one arm but still held it with both white-knuckled hands. One of his kneecaps jumped and shuddered, but his voice was light and steady as ever. 'Ready when you are, Master Jedi.' 'I can't protect you in there.' 'Lovely.' 'You won't be using the console. The transceiver unit itself is in a chamber below the bunker.
I will provide access. Stay out here until I call for the troopers.' 'Certainly. I am in no, ah, hurry, if you take my meaning. I have never been anything remotely resembling a hero.' 'People,' Mace said with tragic conviction, 'change.' He ignited his blade. He held it with both hands.
'May the Force be with us.' He looked at CC-8,'349.
'All right, Captain. Blow the door.' THE HARD WAY G
reasy smoke curled from the shattered blast door. It reeked of blood and flesh and human waste.
The smell of death.
Mace stood next to the door, waiting for the smoke to thin.
The command bunker was dark as a cave. The only light was the white shaft that spilled in through the opening that used to be the door. The interior materialized as though it slowly drew substance from the haze itself.
Bodies were everywhere.
Piled along the walls. Draped over the banks of monitor consoles. Facedown on the floor in black pools.
Some wore combat armor. Some wore militia khakis. Some wore no uniform at all.
Some were missing pieces.
Mace's blade hissed in the smoke as he went inside.
As a weapon, a lightsaber was uniquely tidy. Even, in a sense, merciful. Its powerful cascade of energy instantly seared and cauterized any wound it inflicted. The wounds rarely bled at all. It was a clean weapon.
A vibroshield was not.
STAR WARS: SHATTERPOIN1 The floor in the command bunker was treacherously slippery.
Mace trod with care. Behind him, Nick slipped through the doorway and put his back to the wall.
All was silence and death. A whole different world from the madness outside. Inside was a darker madness.
So dark he might as well be blind.
'Depa,' he said softly. 'Kar. Come out. I know you're watching? me.
His answer was a low, silky predator's growl that seemed to come from everywhere at once.
We don't have to be enemies.
Mace brought up his blade. He moved cautiously around the ruins of the monitor bank closest to the doorway.
Aren't we on the same side? We've won the planet for you, haven't we?
Mace reached into the Force, feeling for the emptiness below that would contain the transceiver. With each step, he worked his feet down, seeking solid footing on the floor before taking the next.
Do you really want to fight us? We are kin, you and I.
We are your own people.
'You were never my people.' Mace spoke without emotion. 'A man like you will always be my enemy, no matter whose side you're on. And I will always fight you.' Why do they name you a Master? You have mastered only futility. You cannot possibly win.
'I don't have to win,' Mace said. 'All I have to do is fight.' A low snarl was the only warning he got.
Nick's guns roared flame at a hurtling dark shape that leaped from nowhere. Sparks clanged in the gloom as Mace whirled instinctively and slashed at the shape and it vanished in a dive that carried it over the console bank. Before he'd even seen what it was.
He'd never felt it coming.
Dark power swirled around him.
He let his blade shrink away and crouched between two console banks, his heart hammering. 'Nick!' he called. 'Did you get him?' 'Don't think so.' Nick's voice came out thin and tight. 'Sounded like he took both on the
