Something was still strong enough even in Lesh's thyssel-addled mind that he could resist Mace's Force- pushed order. 'Don't know anything, you.' His voice went thicker, hitching, as if he wasn't breathing well. 'But teach you, will Kar. What you do, he knows. Teach you, will the akks. Wait, you. Wait and see.' Kar? There'd been a Kar Vaster mentioned in several of Depa's reports. His name had come up as a particularly capable leader of a commando squad, independent or semi- independent; Mace was unclear on the ULF's command structure. But Lesh breathed the name with a sort of superstitious awe.
And had he said akks? or ax?
'Lesh. You have to go. Now.' Questions notwithstanding, Mace was not so foolish as to engage a bark-drunk man in conversation.
'Think you know her. Think she's yours. Teach you better. Maybe. Live long enough to learn, you? Maybe not.' That was enough of a threat for a flick of the Force to bring his lightsaber to his hand. The sizzling flare of its blade cast purple-fringed shadows. But Lesh was not attacking.
He hadn't moved. His rifle was tucked crosswise into his lap.
Tears streamed down his face.
That was the blur in his voice. That was the thick hitch.
He was crying. Silently.
'Lesh,' Mace began in astonishment, 'what's the ma-' He stopped himself because Lesh was still bark-drunk, and Mace was still not a fool. Instead, he offered a hand towel from his kitbag. 'Here. Wipe your face.' Lesh took it and smeared the streaks below his eyes. He stared down at the towel and knotted it between his fists. 'Windu-' 'No.' Mace held out his hand for the towel. 'We'll talk in the morning. After you sober up.' Lesh nodded and sniffled against the back of his fist. With one last beseeching look at Mace, he was gone.
The night rolled on, slow and sleepless. Meditation offered less rest than sleep would, but no dreams.
Not a bad bargain.
In the morning, when he asked Lesh if he still wanted to talk, Lesh pretended he didn't know what Mace meant. Mace watched his back as he walked away, and a flash of Force intuition took him and shook him and he knew: By nightfall, Lesh would be dead.
Day.
The akks' Force yammer was almost painful. They'd given this call often enough that Mace knew it now.
Gunships. More than one.
Mace could feel that Nick was worried. In the Force, dry-ice tension rolled off him. It was starting to affect Mace, too: breathing it in off Nick tied knots in Mace's stomach.
Air patrols had been dogging them all day long. Spiral routes and quarter-cutting: search pattern. It wasn't safe to assume they were looking for anything but the four Korunnai and Mace.
Tension twisted those knots in Mace's guts. How could people live their lives under this kind of pressure?
'Bad luck,' Nick muttered under his breath. 'Bad, bad luck.' They were exposed in a notch pass through a razorback ridge: some long-ago groundquake had knocked a gap here. A broad fan of scrub-clutched scree made the ramp they'd climbed up to the pass. They'd been picking their way through a jumble of boulders a few dozen meters wide, akks ranging before and behind; the sides of the gap were towering cliff faces hung with flowering vines and epiphytic trees that clung to the rock with root-fingered grips. The spine of the ridge was shrouded in low clouds. Only two or three hundred meters away, the slope on the far side led down into dark jungle beyond. They might be able to reach the trees before the air patrol overflew them- But Nick reined in their grasser. 'Lesh is in trouble.' Mace didn't have to ask how he knew: these young folk shared a bond almost as profound as the one they had with their akks.
Mace thought of his Force-flash from the morning. He said, 'Go.' Nick wheeled the grasser and they galloped back through the notch. From Mace's rear- facing saddle, he watched Chalk overtaking them on her way back from her position on point.
Her grasser was the fastest of the four, and it carried only half the load of Nick's.
As they cleared the crest of the pass, Mace used the Force to lift himself up so that he could stand on the saddle facing forward, his hands on Nick's back, leaning to see past his shoulder.
On the descending curve of the pass, someone was down. An akk dog nosed him nervously.
Lesh. His grasser stood placidly a dozen meters away, ripping small trees from the cliff wall to fill its ever- chewing maw. Besh got there first; he swung down from his grasser and sprinted to his brother's side.
'Get up!' Nick shouted. 'Mount up and move!' Nick gestured, and in the Force Mace felt a tug as though an unseen hand had taken hold of his line of sight and dragged it out toward the jungle below: a pair of matte-dull specks of metal skimmed the canopy, trailing a shock wake of roiling leaves.
Gunships. Coming straight for the notch.
'Might not have seen us yet,' Nick muttered to himself. 'Might just be checking the pass-' 'They've seen us.' Nick looked down at Mace past his shoulder. 'How do you know?' 'Because they travel in threes.' His last word was swallowed by howls of repulsorlifts and snarling turbojets that brought a gunship slewing into the gap from the other side of the ridge. Mace expected it to swoop in for a strafing run, but instead it hovered, cycling its turbojets. 'What are they doing?' Nick scowled back at the gunship. 'You've heard the expression, We're cooked?' 'Yes.' Ventral bays swung open in the gunship's belly, and nozzles shaped like a chemical rocket's reaction chamber deployed in a wide-angled array. They belched jets of flame that hit the ground and splashed and ran like rivers of fire, coating rocks and filling crevices. In just over a second the whole end of the pass had become an inferno so intense Mace had to shield his face with his arm. The gunship swept toward them, burying the gap in fire.
'In this case,' Nick said grimly, 'it's not just an expression.' BLOOD FEVER T
he gunship bore down on them, riding a towering fan of flame.
The grasser unleashed an earsplitting honk and threw itself into a shockingly fast sprint, bounding from rock
