'Kar Vastor,' Mace said flatly, 'you are charged with the murder of Terrel Nakay.' 'Uh, Master, mm, General-? Sir? You sure you know what you're doing?' Vastor stared in blank disbelief. Your men will die.
'They are soldiers, and this is a war. They understand the risks they face,' Mace said. 'Do you?' What risks?
'When your man fires upon the lander, you will have committed treason. Implicated in your crime, Depa will face the same charge. You are placing her in capital jeopardy: that is, she will be executed along with you.' Vastor's growl did not now carry words. Only contempt and anger.
'Perhaps you should order your man to stand down. While you still can.' Depa is right: Jedi are insane.
'Ever since I came to this planet, people have been telling me how crazy I am. They've told me this so many times that I had started to wonder if it might be true. Now, though, I understand: you don't say this because it's true. Not even because you think it's true. You say it because you hope it's true. Because if I am insane, you aren't really the revolting slime-hearted vermin that, down deep, you know you are.' But Vastor no longer seemed to be listening. He had folded his massive arms so that the lightsabers in his hands disappeared behind his ultrachrome-shielded biceps. He paced meditatively away from Mace, strolling toward the meadow's cliff lip, and stared out over the vast roll of jungle below. The vista was alive with gunmetal specks and distant flashes of cannonfire.
Many gunships patrol today, he hummed. More than I have ever seen.
'Mace-' Nick hissed from the cave behind. 'You know that bad feeling I was talking about? It's getting worse.' 'Yes.' 'Maybe you better get back in here where it's safe.' 'Nowhere is safe,' Mace said, and walked out to join Vaster at the edge of the cliff.
I have tried, Vaster purred when Mace reached his side. I have done all that can be asked of me. Not even Depa can say I did not try to spare your life. But you will not be reasonable. 'It is not in my nature.','/ is as you said earlier: you have made my choice for me. There is only one way to protect her from you. 'That is true.' Mace reached down inside himself until he found the calm center within his exhaustion and his pain. He breathed himself into that center until he was fully within it, and all pain and fatigue and doubt were left behind outside. 'Do we fight, now?' We must.
It is bitter, that we last men ofghosh Windu must be enemies. I wish this could have turned out differently, but I did not expect it would. Depa has told me that you do not lose well. 'I haven't had much practice.' Vaster bent his head in a regretful nod of respect. Good-bye, Mace, Jedi of the Windu.
A tiny surge of the Force- Just a twitch. A shrug. The slightest nudge, not even directed at Mace; sent off somewhere into the trees below the pass-A signal.
The scene, frozen in time, locked in the amber of Mace's Force-sense: Vaster standing with arms folded, not the slightest hint of threat, his shields pushed high on his arms, those arms still crossed to bury the lightsabers that he held under his massive biceps- Mace beside him, exposed on the lip of the cliff, unarmed- Gunships rippling the jungle canopy far below in shock wakes, silent with distance- Nick behind in the cave, rifle leaning against the rock, one hand yanking the butt of his bolstered pistol in a draw that to ordinary eyes would be blinding- And a man hidden in the shadows of the jungle a kilometer away, smoothly squeezing the trigger of a high-powered sniper's blaster rifle to send one single packet of murderous scarlet energy clawing up toward the meadow from the jungle below- Centered on Mace Windu's heart.
All this Mace kenned in a single instant, effortlessly, and the shat-terpoint he found and struck by instinct was Vastor's balance at the lip of the cliff.
Calmly, without any particular haste, Mace put his hand on Vastor's shoulder and gave the lorpelek a shove.
Over the edge.
Vastor's eyes bulged astonishment as he toppled forward and his arms uncrossed to windmill for his balance. His teetering swung his head just far enough in the right direction that the bullet from Nick's slug pistol scorched Vastor's temple instead of blowing his brains out through his eyes; as his arms whirled, his grip on the lightsabers loosened. Mace reached into the Force, snatching them both, triggering them to flaring life and bringing them to his hands with an easy six or seven milliseconds to spare before he needed them to splatter aside the bolt from the jungle below.
Vastor's vine cat reflexes whirled him in the air and latched his hands onto the rock face a meter below the lip of the cliff. His confederate in the jungle poured fire up at Mace to drive him back, while Nick ran out of the cave behind him, shouting 'Did I get him? Is he dead1? Is he dead?' until Vaster threw himself back up into the meadow, bringing his vibroshields into fighting position with a surge of the Force.
Nick fired as fast as his finger could jerk the pistol's trigger and bullets clanged off Vastor's flashing shields- And Mace just stood there.
Staring into his blade.
In the Force, the world had turned to crystal.
The purple flame of his blade splintered flaws throughout the planet. Stress fractures spidered from his blade to Vaster, to Nick, into the mountain behind, into the pass below, and to space above, racing in outrippling waves that joined him with what was, but also with what had been, and what would be.
Triggering his blade here, now: it was a shatterpoint of the Summertime War.
His consciousness splintered along with the world, flashing instantly along the fault lines and vectors of effect: for a single instant, he was in direct and intimate contact with many different times and places.
He saw it all.
As though from some impossible distance, he saw the Balawai prisoners kneeling on the promontory, and how gunships had arrived almost before he'd even lit the wood he'd piled up to make a signal fire.
He saw the gunships arrive at the outpost, only minutes after he had ignited this weapon to defend the children in the bunker from the hasty fire of their own people's weapons.
He saw Vaster below the outpost's ruins, and heard again his growled meaning: My men say you drove them off single-handed, though they did not seem to be damaged. Perhaps you have taught Balawai to fear thejedi blade.
But they did not fear it, he knew.
