Kar Vaster.
He moved only to direct the ankkox. His face held no expression. He did not even look at Mace and Nick.
The air around him shimmered with his rage.
Smaller trees the ankkox shouldered aside; underbrush it simply crushed beneath its speeder-sized feet. To get the ankkox through tree gaps too small to pass its huge shell where the trees were too large to overbear, Vaster would reach out with his goad, indicating specific points on their trunks-which would be struck by some whirring object, invisibly fast, that impacted with enough power to shatter the trunks and let it pass: the creature's tail mace.
The only part of the ankkox's body that was not armored was its extensile, muscular, surprisingly flexible tail. The tail was tipped with a thick round ball of armor, and an adult ankkox could snap its tail faster than the human eye could see, using that mace to accurately strike targets up to eight meters away with enough power to stun an akk dog or shatter a small tree.
There was a time, before the reopening of Haruun Kal to the civilized galaxy, when a mace taken from a juvenile ankkox was the traditional weapon of Korun herders: dangerous to acquire. Difficult to use. Deadly in effect.
On the central bulge of this ankkox's dorsal shell had been built a howdah: a small curtained cabin framed with lammas wood, two meters by three, barely larger than the long padded chaise within. The draped canopy stood slightly higher than Mace was tall, bounded by a polished rail perhaps a meter above the shell. The curtains, not to mention the fine-worked wood itself, were probably spoils looted from some Balawai's home. Multiple layers of gauzy lace, the curtains were translucent as smoke.
With the sunset behind, Mace could see her silhouette.
The ankkox crunched to a ponderous stop, settling onto its ventral shell with a long hiss through its teeth like gas venting from pneumatic landing jacks. Vastor tucked the goad into its holster bolted to the ankkox's crown shell, then stepped forward over the drover chair and folded his thick-muscled arms.
He stared down into the eyes of the Jedi Master.
The akk dogs started to growl low in their throats, a sound more felt than heard, like the subterranean precursor of a coming groundquake.
The wind died; even the rustle of leaves went silent.
In the hush of fading day, the Force showed Mace a shatterpoint.
The darkness of the jungle, not of the Sith.
Life without the restraints of civilization.
'We're done,' Nick said. 'You get that, don't you? We're as done as a week-old roast.
What do they call it in the army? Aid and comfort to the enemy?' 'Be quiet. Don't draw attention to yourself.' 'Great idea. Maybe they'll forget I'm here.' 'This isn't about aid and comfort to the enemy,' Mace said. 'If this were going to be anything military, they'd put us under arrest. We'd be taken back to have some kind of show trial witnessed by the rest of the ULF. Instead, we're out here in the jungle, and the only witnesses are Kar, Depa, and these akks-human and saurian.' 'So they're just gonna kill us.' 'If we're lucky,' Mace said, 'it's going to be a dogfight.' 'A ^ogfight? If we're lucky? Okay, sure. Let's not even try to make sense. Just tell me what I'm supposed to do.' 'You're supposed to remember that you are an officer of the Grand Army of the Republic.' 'I just took the fraggin' oath three hours ago-' 'Three hours or thirty years. It makes no difference. You have sworn to conduct yourself to the credit of the Republic as its commissioned officer.' 'So that kind of rules out wetting my pants and sobbing like a baby, huh?' 'Stay calm. Show no weakness. Think of Vastor as a wild akk: do nothing to trigger his prey drive. And shut up.' 'Oh, sure. Is that an order, General?' 'Will making it an order help you do it?' Above on the ankkox's shell, Vastor had been staring silently while an aurora of rage built in the air around him. Only now did Mace meet the,'orpelek's gaze.
Mace allowed his lip to curl with a hint of contempt.
Nick whispered, 'What are you doing?' Mace's gaze never wavered. 'Nothing you need concern yourself with.' 'Urn, maybe I should have told you,' the young Korun muttered nervously. 'Kar doesn't like to be stared at.' 'I know.' 'It gets him mad.' 'He's already mad.' 'Yeah. And you're makin' him madder.' 'That's my intention.' 'Y'know,' Nick said, 'I'm gonna give up asking if you're crazy. Let's consider it a standing question, huh? Every time you open your mouth, go ahead and assume I'm wondering if nikkle nuts have started falling out your earholes. 'Good morning, Nick.' Are you crazy? 'Nice day, isn't it?' Are you crazy?' Mace hissed from the side of his mouth, 'Will you be quiet?' 'Are you crazy?' Nick ducked his head. 'Sorry. Just a reflex.' Vastor's jaw worked, and a wordless growl escaped from his tight-drawn lips.
You were sent for.
Mace sighed, looking bored.
Vastor's growl thickened.
Defiance carries a price.
Nick cocked his head, frowning. 'This isn't about the prisoners?' Mace looked at him sidelong: Nick had understood. So Vaster was talking to both of them-or rather, to Mace, but at least partially for the benefit of Nick. He glanced up at the howdah.
Likely for the benefit of Depa as well.
'Of course it's about the prisoners,' Mace said softly. 'He's just warming up. Play along.' Mace hooked his thumbs in his belt and walked casually forward. 'I told you already: I am not to be sent for. Since you have brought her to me as ordered, I'll see her now.' The shimmer around Vaster deepened, but he held himself perfectly still. His growl sharpened into a vine cat's hunting cough.,' don't take orders. Depa is here at her own request.
'Oh?' She came to say good-bye.
'I'm not going anywhere.' Vastor's response was a silent grinning gape that showed all his inhumanly sharp teeth. He gestured, and the ring of akks and humans parted before him.
