Where's Mom? Are you gonna let them put us out in the jungle?' Mace met her tear-blurred gaze squarely. 'No. I'm going to send you back to the city.
You're going home. All of you.' Nick muttered, 'Don't make promises you can't keep.' 'I never do.' 'You don't think Kar and those Akk Guards down there are gonna have something to say about it?' 'I'm aware of their opinion already. I have my own.' 'The tan pel'trokal-' 'Means nothing to me,' Mace said. 'I don't care about jungle justice. I care about Jedi justice. And I will see it done.' 'Jedi justice, my weeping saddle sores. You still don't get it, do you? Jedi anything doesn't mean squat out here-' 'I understand the rules now. You read them to me yourself; then Kar Vastor taught me what they mean. Now I can start to play.' 'That's just it,' Nick insisted. 'You're in thejung,'e, now. There are no rules.' 'Of course there are. Don't be an idiot.' Nick blinked. 'You're kidding, right? You're making a joke.' 'Stay here and watch,' Mace told him, working his way down toward the guards. 'Then tell me what you think of my sense of humor.' The same Akk Guard whom Mace had kicked now moved to block the Jedi Master's path.
The swellings Vastor's fist had left on the man's face had gone as purple-black as the thickening clouds overhead. Muscle bunched like blocks of duracrete under the skin of his bare chest.
'Where going, Windu?' Mace had to tilt his head back to meet the Korun's stare. 'I don't know your name.' 'You can call me-' 'I didn't ask your name,' Mace cut him off. 'I jtjst don't know it. I don't need to. You should get out of my way.' The guard's eyes looked scalded, and more than slightly crazed. 'Out of your way, little Jedi?' 'I am taking the prisoners to the steamcrawler track.' Mace nodded in that general direction.
'I can go past you, or I can go over you. You pick.' 'Over me? Can fly, you?' The vibroshields strapped to his forearms snarled to life. He raised them to either side of Mace's face. 'Draw your toy weapon, little Jedi. Go ahead. Draw.' 'My lightsaber? Why should I?' Mace raised a finger to tap his own forehead. 'This is the only weapon I need.' 'Yeah?' A sneer: 'What, think me to death, you gonna?' 'You misunderstand.' By way of explanation, he splattered the Korun's nose with a sharp head-butt.
The Korun staggered backward. Mace moved with him in perfect synchronization as though they were dancing, hands gripping the man's massive biceps. When the Korun started to recover his balance, his head naturally coming forward once more, Mace yanked on his arms, pulling him into another head-butt that brought Mace's forehead and the point of the Korun's chin together with a crack as sharp as a breaking rock.
Mace stepped back to let the semiconscious man collapse. The other guard snarled and lunged at Mace's back, only to find himself facing the business end of a sizzling purple lightsaber.
'He's alive,' Mace said calmly. 'So are you. For now. The next one of you pathetic nerfs who raises a hand to me will die for it. Do you understand?' The Korun only stared at him with murder on his face.
''Answer me!' Mace roared. With a convulsive snarl, he threw his lightsaber on the ground at the Korun's feet. Faster than the eye could follow, his hand flashed out, his thumb hooking the Korun's cheek while his fingers dug in behind the hinge of the man's jaw. He yanked the Korun's face to within a centimeter of his own, and there was open raging madness in his eyes.
'DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?' The Korun's mouth worked in speechless shock. Mace howled into his face, 'YOU WANT TO DIE? YOU WANT TO DIE RIGHT NOW? MAKE A MOVE! DO IT! DO IT AND DIE!' The astonished Korun could only blink and mumble and try to shake his head. Mace released the man's face with a contemptuous shove that sent the guard stumbling backward.
Mace opened his empty hand, and his lightsaber flipped up from the ground and smacked into his palm. He tucked it back into the holster inside his vest.
'Never get in my way.' His voice was again icily calm. 'Ever.' He turned his eye to the pair of akk dogs, who were up and growling like looming thunderheads, spines bristling across their armored shoulders.
Mace stared at them.
First one, then the other, lowered its head and flattened those spines. Tails tucked low, the akk dogs backed away.
Mace looked upslope, where Nick stood gaping in blank wonder. The captives huddled even closer together, none daring to make eye contact. Mace beckoned.
By the time Nick and the grasser that carried the children arrived, the downed Akk Guard was stirring. But when he opened his eyes to find Mace still standing over him, he decided to stay on the ground.
'Okay, I admit it,' Nick said as they passed by the guards and the dogs. 'That was pretty funny. And a little scary: I've never seen you angry before.' 'You still haven't,' Mace said softly. 'Remember those rules of the jungle I was talking about? You just saw one in action.' 'What rule was that?' 'When the big dog's walking,' said Jedi Master Mace Windu, 'little dogs step aside.' Icy rain splashed down through the canopy, and thunder rolled like turbojets of gunships passing overhead. Though the day had reached only midafternoon, the storm wrapped the jungle in late-twilight gloom. Mace walked a few paces behind Nick's bedraggled grasser.
Raindrops tapped his skull, atid a chilly rivulet twisted along his spine. In places where the leaf mold gave way to bare ground, mud sucked at his boots with every step. Sometimes he sank in deeply enough that the mud leaked over his boot tops. Only by drawing strength from the Force could he keep moving.
He could not imagine what the march must be like for the wounded prisoners.
Every once in a while, a hunk or two of the hail that the thunder-head above spat down would bounce all the way through the layers of leaf and branch and vine and give someone a knock. By the time they reached ground level, most of these hailstones had melted down to about half the size of Mace's fist: too small to be dangerous, though still large enough to raise stinging welts on his head. The Balawai prisoners gathered ones that fell nearby, sucking on them to melt them in their mouths. With a bit of wiping, these hailstones made the cleanest source of water they were likely to find-they carried only the faintest sulfurous traces of volcanic smoke and gases.
In the Force, Mace felt the hot fierce sting of an approaching akk dog; a moment later he felt a Force-nudge on his right shoulder blade. He reached up to tug on Nick's ankle. 'Keep them going,' he said, raising his voice over the hiss of the rain. 'I'll be right back.' A few steps off their line of march, a man's shadow began to take shape through the rain- blurred gloom. Mace walked toward it, weaving between trees and moving vines aside with a gesture, to find the bruised Akk Guard heading for him carrying one of the Balawai. Behind the guard, the great akk Mace had felt made a gray silhouette.
'Fell out, this one. Think he's fevered, me.' The guard set the Balawai on his feet. It was the wounded man with the missing hand. 'Better keep someone with him, you.' Mace nodded as he looped the man's good arm over his shoulders. 'Thank you. I'll look after him.' The Balawai gazed at him without recognition.
The guard frowned down at them. 'Gonna kill you for this, Kar is. Know that, you?' 'I appreciate your
