'I have missed you, Mace.' Her eyes sparkled with tears. 'I can't tell you how I've missed you. Of course you knew exactly the spot where my defenses would crumble. But I'm not your real problem,' she said tiredly. 'What are you going to do about Kar?' 'You're my only problem,' Mace told her. 'I found your shatter-point; do you think I'd miss his?' 'I think he doesn't have one.' 'That,' said Mace Windu, 'remains to be seen.' 'You and your shatterpoints.' Her sad smile was dazzling on her tear-stained face. 'Who but Mace Windu would think to take him-^hostage?' Mace's head twitched to the right in a Korun shrug. 'I was the only one available.' Mace leapt lightly down from the ankkox. 'Kar Vaster. We need to talk.' We do not. Vaster did not meet his eyes. As you said: the next time we meet, there may be a fight.
'What I said was,' Mace replied lazily, 'the next time we're alone together, there may be a fight. But I gave you too much credit. I mean, that is why you brought all your puppies along, isn't it? You certainly didn't seem interested in standing up to me without them.' Vastor's head turned like a steamcrawler's gun turret. What?
'You have a problem with me?' Mace spread his hands. 'I'm right here.' Tendons in Vastor's neck cranked his head down a centimeter at a time. She doesn't want you hurt.
'Depa? Do you plan to hide behind her forever?' Mace folded his arms. 'Always find a reason to back down, don't you? I admire your. creativity.' The Akk Guards stared.
All twelve akk dogs hunched and coiled their haunches, tails whipping forward past their shoulder spines: ready to pounce. Vaster snarled and lunged convulsively past Mace. He snatched Nick's arm and hauled the young Korun to his feet, holding him out toward Mace.
'Hey, y'know, ow, huh?' I have grassers saddled and supplied. Take them and the boy and go.
His filed-sharp teeth seemed to glow in the vine-lit gloom. Take them and live.
'You know,' Mace said, 'I don't much care for your tone.' Vastor's eyes widened. His mouth worked silently.
'And take your hand off my aide. Now.' Vaster found his voice: a roar of black rage. A violent shove sent Nick stumbling forward.
Only a grab at Mace's shoulders kept him on his feet. He looked up into the Jedi Master's eyes and gave him a sickly grin. 'Remember that question I wasn't gonna ask anymore?' GO. Vastor's roar carried tectonic power. Go before I forget my promise to spare you.
Mace turned to one of the Akk Guards. 'Does he always yammer like this? He'd quiet down if you got him fixed.' The guard went pale. He shook his head urgently. 'Really, really don't want to talk to Kar like this, you. Really really really.' 'Oh, right. Sure. He's not so good with Basic.' Mace hooked his thumbs inside his vest.
Tendons stood out like cables in the lor peleKs neck. His shimmering rage went scarlet, glowing in the twilit gloom, as though his skin were lava pouring from a volcano's mouth.
Slowly, deliberately, his left hand tucked behind the shield on his right arm. He pulled it down into fighting position, carefully avoiding its razor edges. Just as slowly and deliberately, he did the same with the other.
Muscle rippled in his arms as he squeezed the handgrips, and the shields whined to life. He brought them together back to back, generating an earsplitting squeal that made even the akk dogs flinch.
From behind Mace's shoulder, Nick whispered, 'Are you sure I'm not allowed to wet myself?' Mace walked calmly out of the center of the ring, straight toward Vaster, thumbs still hooked inside his vest. 'You do that a lot. No doubt your puppies find it pretty scary.' Looking straight up into Vastor's eyes, Mace swung his vest open to display the handgrip of his lightsaber.
Then he shrugged out of the vest, folded it once, and tossed it over his shoulder with effortless accuracy, right into the hands of an astonished Nick Rostu. With his lightsaber still inside it.
'That's how much you scare me.' Vastor's shields parted, and the jungle went silent.
'Everybody here knows this has nothing to do with Depa,' Mace said. 'This has to do with those Balawai you were too stupid and weak to hold.' Vastor's legs coiled like the aides' haunches. They were mine! MINE! Mine to kill. Mine to spare. They were MINE to give to the justice of the jungle- 'Until you met me. Then they were mine,' Mace said. 'Mine to let go.','','/ show you stupid and weak- 'You already have.' Vaster shifted his weight to throw himself into a leap, but then froze as though an invisible leash had snapped tight around his neck. He glanced back at the shadow behind the curtains of the howdah for a moment. When he turned toward Mace once more, his lips were drawn back in a predator's grin, and his eyes burned like twin calderae.
Depa prefers that you live. But she doesn't mind if you get hurt.
Mace shrugged. 'As long as she won't mind when you get hurt.' Vaster began to unbuckle his shields. Mace turned his back on the lorpelek contemptuously and strolled toward the center of the ring of akks and people.
There was nothing either slow or deliberate about the way Vastor shook the shields off his arms: a whipping snap of the wrist that flung them down to clatter against the rim of the ankkox's shell.
Nick held the bundle of Mace's vest and weapon uncertainly. 'Um, guess I should have told you: that big-dog stuff doesn't work on Kar.' 'On the contrary,' the Jedi Master replied softly. 'It's working perfectly.' Nick blinked.
Mace said, 'As for you, though-' 'Don't worry about me. I know exactly what to do.' He tucked Mace's vest under one arm and trotted toward the nearest Akk Guard. 'A hundred credits says the Jedi makes Kar cry like a baby! Who's in?' The lor pelek crouched and lowered one hand to the ground, digging in the leaf mold, his sweat- glistening chest heaving, breath pumping darkness into him and out again. Gathering rage.
Gathering power.
The shimmer around him had gone from red to black.
Mace shook his arms loose. 'Rules?' Vastor's reply was the snort of a hunting akk. Jungle rules. A burst of power launched the lor pelek as a human missile, clawing his way through the twilight toward the Jedi Master.
Jungle rules it is, then, Mace thought, and leapt to meet him in midair.
JUNGLE RULES T, hey collided with a crash that shook the jungle around them. The collision was not just of two human bodies, but of two node-channels of the Force: invisible energy crackled, and vivid blue gap-sparks arced from leaf to leaf in the canopy above. For a moment, they hung in the air, supported by power, grappling, tearing at each other's flesh. The akk dogs lunged and whirled and slashed the air with their tails. The guards
