At least a company of heavy infantry, with a couple of mobile artillery pieces and possibly more out there that Mace didn't have time to identify because he just kept the gunship roaring straight on through the middle of them and into the warehouse across the street before any of the astonished Balawai could so much as charge their weapons.
Blasting through buildings when they had to, zooming along open streets when they could, zigzagging and backtracking to find gaps in the tightening net of heavy armor that was rolling through the warehouse district, they fought their way out into the city, leaving a wake of astonished Balawai and an immense connect-the-dots trail of burning warehouses.
Sometimes, when things go wrong, they go wrong one at a time: a chain of misfortune that must be dealt with link by link. Those are the easy times.
Sometimes troubles come in a starburst.
When they had finally broken free from the warehouse district, Mace brought the gunship down to a walking pace. The evening thoroughfares of Pelek Baw were crowded as always, but beings of all species hastily stepped aside for the idling gunship cruising through the city at street level.
At least, whenever they stopped staring long enough to move.
'Nick. Do you know where we are?' The young Korun leaned around him to stare out the windscreen; off to their port side, the sky was red with the light of the fires they'd left behind. 'So much for the element of surprise.' 'Nick.' Nick shook his head dejectedly. 'Don't you get it? They know we're coming now. The Ministry of Justice is like afortress. Hell, it is a fortress. Not even you can get in there. Not now. Now they'll be ready for us.' Mace said, 'They always were. That's all right: we're not going there.' 'Huh?' 'Geptun is smart. Possibly too smart for his own good. He knows we'll come for him; it's the only move we have. That's why we tracked his signal so easily: he wants us to hit the Ministry of Justice. If he were really in the Ministry, he could have found a way to mask his signal. There won't be anything there except a very large number of troops. Or possibly only a very large bomb.' 'Then what are we fraggin' doing out here? Where is he?' 'A place with electronics sophisticated enough to fake the origination data of a comm signal,' Mace said. 'I may not be the dejarik player our colonel is, but there's nothing wrong with my memory. The one time we met, it was on the occasion of the death of someone he described as an old friend.' Nick's eyes narrowed. 'Tenk.' he breathed. 'You think he's at the Washeteria.' 'Can you get us there?' 'Sure. Simple. All you gotta do is bear northeast-' He was interrupted by Chalk's hand on his arm.
She gave him a sickly smile, and her throat worked as though she were struggling not to retch. 'Maybe. maybe better-' She coughed wetly.
Blood spattered from her lips.
'Chalk!' Her fingers dug into his arm: a spasm. Her other hand was pressed to her side. Her face was gray, and her eyes looked foggy. 'Maybe better take nav, you,' she said, and slumped.
Her hand fell away from her ribs, revealing a ragged hole below her breast. She crumpled forward against the nav chair's safety straps. In her back was an exit wound Nick could have put his fist into. The chair-back had an even bigger hole, and the cockpit wall behind bore a splash of blood and tissue and shreds of black synth- leather.
Nick threw his arms around her, holding her head up, pleading with her empty eyes. 'Chalk, no, not you, come on, not you too, come on, Chalk, please-' Mace looked at the windscreen: at the line of rainbow-ringed slug dents from that first GAV: a line punctuated by the lightsaber-cut gap-She had taken that slug minutes ago. Without a word. Without a sound. She had held on-had fought on- Because people she loved were in danger.
'The medical center-' Nick's voice had gone thick. 'The medical center's only a klick or two from here-' Mace's decision did not take even a full second. General or not, he was still a Jedi. 'Just tell me which way to go.' 'Okay. Okay.' Nick tore himself away from Chalk and pointed toward an intersection ahead. 'Okay, go left at the corner, then-' The street in front of them erupted like a chain of volcanos: explosions at the terminal points of scarlet particle beams that rained upon them from the night sky: aimed not at the street but at a hurtling dark shape that twisted through a barrel roll over the buildings before it took a direct hit and tumbled into a ball of debris-spewing fire that slammed an apartment block only a few dozen meters short of the Turbostorm.
The blast picked up the gunship and spun it down the street.
Of the unarmored groundcars, and the pedestrians, the taxicarts and street vendors, the elderly on their stoops and the children who had darted playfully around the tall lightpoles- Nothing was left but smoking rubble and twisted metal.
'What in the-' Nick reeled off an impressive string of obscenities. '-was thatT Mace wrestled the Turbostorm out of its spin and cut the engines; the ship skidded down the street trailing a fountaining tail of sparks. He leaned forward, his knuckles pale on the control yoke, and stared up through the windscreen.
'May the Force give me strength.' he whispered: as close to a curse as he had ever come.
That hurtling dark shape had been one of the Incom Skyhoppers from the spaceport. The cannonfire that had rained on the street and brought down the skyhopper had come from droid starfighters.
The night sky was full of ships.
Above the city.
'Oh, Depa.' Mace breathed.
More than four hundred thousand people lived in Pelek Baw. Drawing fire from the starfighters down upon it could put the entire capital to the torch.
No: not could.
Had.
The skyhopper wasn't the first ship to crash into the crowded streets of the capital tonight.
And there were over a hundred more, from tiny racing yachts to immense freighters.
He felt the city in the Force: a holocaust of flame and darkness.
Panic. Rage. Grief.
Horror.
