take them an hour to get inside. It may take them ten minutes. Once they enter those caves, I should be very much surprised if any Korun leaves that place alive.' 'Geptun-' 'Colonel Geptun.' '-there are over two thousand civilians in there. The old, and the very young. Would you have your men slaughter children?' 'There is only one way to stop them,' Geptun said regretfully. 'I must give them the order to stand down before they breach those caves.' 'And for that, you want our surrender.' u't'tr? Yes.
'There are,' Mace said slowly, 'civilians in here, as well.' 'Of course there are.' Geptun's smile broadened. 'Civilians that you, Mace Windu, would give your life to protect. I cannot be bluffed. Not by you.' Mace lowered his head.
'Don't take it too hard, General. In dejarik, part of true mastery is recognizing when a game is lost.' Geptun cleared his throat delicately. 'You have, sad to say, only one move left: to resign.' 'Give us a a little time.' Defeat had leaked into Mace's voice. 'We-we'll have to talk it over-' 'Ah, time. Of course. Take as long as you like. It's not actually up to me, is it? My sappers are quite, shall we say, gifted? They could break through at any moment. It would be-mmmm, ironic-if your surrender were to come too late to save all those innocent lives.' 'Yes.' Mace's voice was subdued. 'I'll call back on the same frequency.' 'I look forward to it. It's been a pleasure playing against you, Master Windu. Geptun out.' The image on the huge wallscreen faded. Silence shrouded the room.
Depa tottered to her feet. 'Mace.' Her voice trickled off into a whimper of pain; she lowered her head and clenched her jaw, pulling herself together by sheer willpower. 'Mace, we can't let the militia kill those people. Your people-' 'My people,' said Mace Windu, 'are Jedi.' He lifted his head, and he didn't look beaten at all. 'Nick.' Nick Rostu looked up from the console where he was huddled with a pair of troopers, and his eyes sparkled. 'Got him. The Ministry of Justice. Pegged him with his own bloody satellites!' Depa looked stunned; Kar Vastor's face birthed a predatory grin.
Mace nodded. 'Depa. Time to fight. Are you strong enough?' She passed a hand before her face, and her gaze sharpened for a moment, but then she sagged, holding herself up with one hand while the other pressed against her temple. 'I–I think so, Mace-but it's too, too-there's so much.' The ragged exhaustion in her voice twisted in his stomach like a knife. 'All right. Stay here.' 'No-no, I can fight-' 'Perhaps you can. But I can't, while I know that you're about to collapse. You're staying.
That's an order.' He turned away. 'Nick: you're with me. Get Chalk and meet me at the gunship.' Nick jumped for the door, then jerked to a stop, whirled, and made a credible attempt at a salute that he ruined with a smirk and a one-armed shrug. 'Sorry: forgot.' Mace acknowledged his salute, and Nick vanished through the bunker's doorway.
'Mace-' Depa struggled toward him, and reached out as though to take his hand from across the room. Kar Vaster strode up behind her, arms out to catch her if she fell. 'You can't-you won't have a chance. They'll shoot you down before you clear the landing field.' 'They won't shoot me down. I'm not going up. That gunship is about to become Haruun Kal's largest landspeeder. Nick knows the streets. He can get us where we need to go.' She half-fell toward the nearest chair; Vaster caught her and low ered her gently into it. She winced a rueful thanks up at him, and placed her hand on his before turning back to Mace.
'You're going after the Colonel-?' 'I don't need him. I need that datapad.' 'What will you.' Her eyes drifted closed, and she had to force the words out. Kar squeezed her hand, and a half a smile flowed across her lips before draining into the burn scar at the corner of her mouth. 'What will you do. with Geptun?' Mace stared at them: Depa Billaba and Kar Vaster.
He had to go. He had to leave her behind. Let her stay. With him.
He might never see her again.
He couldn't make himself say good-bye.
In the end, all he could do was answer her question. 'Colonel Geptun is a dangerous man,' he said. 'Exceedingly dangerous. I'll probably have to kill him.' He frowned, and tipped his head in a Korun shrug. 'Or, possibly, offer him a job.' INFERNO T
wilight.
Turbolaser batteries cast building-sized shadows across the darkening plain of permacrete.
Silent clones sat behind the plated shields of antistarfighter duals and quads; the only sound was a soft whine of servomotors as computer-tracked cannons traced the motion of droid starfighters still too high to be more than bright specks in the setting sun.
A tiny noise-a half-swallowed whine of pain and frustration-brought Mace's attention up from the gunship's preflight checklist. Chalk was struggling with the nav chair's seat straps; her tightly bandaged wounds wouldn't let her twist far enough to reach the length control. Her face had gone so pale that her freckles stood out like grease-splatters, and a streak of blood reddened the sheath of bandages around her chest.
'Here, let me.' Mace adjusted the strap length and buckled her in. He frowned at the blood on her bandages. 'When did this happen?' Chalk shrugged, avoiding his eyes. 'On the jump, maybe. At the Pass.' 'You should have said something.' She pushed his hands away and busied herself with weapons checks. ' 'M okay. Tough girl, me-' 'I know you are, Chalk. But your wounds-' 'Don't have time to be hurt, me.' She nodded up through the oval lightsaber-cut gap in the windscreen. Far above the city, the setting sun struck sparks from the impossibly complex shimmerfly dance of the droid starfighters. 'Are in danger, people. People I love. Can hurt later, me.' The fierce conviction in her voice gave Mace pause. An inventory of his own wounds flickered through his mind: his concussion that was giving him this headache, his cracked ribs, his sprained ankle that had him limping, the infected blaster-burn on his thigh, the spray-bandaged bite wound that Vaster had given him, not to mention all his minor cuts and the bruises that covered so much of his body it was hard to tell one from the next.
And yet he fought on, and would fight on. Wounds? Right now he could barely feel them.
Because someone he loved was in danger.
'When this is over,' he said, nodding his understanding, 'you and I will check into a med center. Together.' The smile she gave him showed only a trace of pain. Nick poked his head through the cockpit doorway. 'Looks like we're a go-hey, look at this' he said with a sudden frown, staring out through the windscreen.
Through the shadows slashing the landing field loped Kar Vaster. His shields flashed eye- stinging highlights from the glowpanel dayfloods that now, with sunset passing, shone upon the ships. He waved as he ran, clearly asking Mace to wait for him.
'What, does he want to fight again or something?' Nick brightened. 'Y'know, we could just shoot him- accidentally, like. One of those senseless weapons-check tragedies-' 'Nick.' 'Yeah, yeah.' Without expression, Mace watched Vaster approach. Only moments ago-just before he left the command bunker to come out here-he had pulled aside CRC-09,'571 for a private conversation. 'Your orders come only from me, do you understand?' he had told the clone commander. 'I want you to be absolutely clear on that.' CRC-09,'571's helmet had tilted to a
