He does not live for power, to cause pain and dominate all he surveys. He simply lives.
Fiercely. Naturally. Stripped of the restraints of civilization.
He is less a man than he is an avatar of the jungle itself. Dark power flows into him and out again but it does not seem to touch him. He has a savage purity that I might envy, were I not a Jedi and sworn to the light.
Black is the presence of every color.
He doesn't make the darkness, he only uses it. His inner darkness is a reflection of the darkness of his world; and it darkens the world around him in turn. Internal and external darkness create each other, just as do internal and external light: that is the underlying unity of the Force.
As Depa might say, he didn't start this war. He's just trying to win it.
And that was it, right there: my Jedi instincts had made a connection below the threshold of my consciousness. Vastor. The jungle. The akk dogs, and the humans who had been made into Vastor's pack. Depa. Darkness so deep it was like being blind. Nick's words: The jungle doesn't promise. It exists. Not because the jungle kills you. Because it is what it is.
The war itself.
Only later, when I would spend a full day riding alongside Depa's howdah on the dorsal shell of her immense ankkox, when I would have to lean close to the gauzy curtains to catch her half- whispered words, would I understand where my instincts were leading me.
There are times when her voice is strong and clear, and her arguments lucid, and if I close my eyes and ignore the rocking of the ankkox's gait, the insect stings and rich floral rot of the jungle, I can imagine us chatting over a couple of cups of rek tea in my meditation chamber at the Jedi Temple.
In those times, she makes a terrifying sense.
"You still think like a judicial," she told me once. "That's your fundamental error. You still think in terms of enforcing the law. Upholding the rules. You were a great peace officer, Mace, but you're a terrible general. That's what cost so many lives at Geonosis: we went in like judi-cials. Trying to rescue hostages without loss of life. Trying to keep the peace. The Geonosians already knew we were at war-so only a few of us survived." "And if I thought like a general, what should I have done?" I asked her. "Let Obi-Wan and Anakin die?" "A general," murmured the shadow through the curtains, "would have dropped a baradium bomb on that arena." "Depa, you can't be serious," I began, but she had stopped listening to me.
"Win the war," she went on. "Win at the cost of two Jedi, one Senator, and a few thousand of the enemy." "At the cost of everything that makes jedi what we are." "Instead, a hundred and more Jedi died, and you have a galaxy at war. Millions will die, and millions more will end up like that boy Kar killed: twisted, angry, and evil. Gather a million corpses, and tell them your ethics outweighed their lives." To this I have no easy answer, even now.
But as Yoda says: There are questions for which we can never have answers. We can only be answers.
That is what I must try to be, for I know, now, what it means to be a keeper of the peace in the Galaxy of War.
That is: it means nothing at all.
There is no peace. What we thought was the Great Peace of the Republic was only a dream from which our galaxy has now awakened. I doubt we'll ever fall back into any dream like that again.
In the Galaxy of War, no one sleeps that well.
This understanding came later; at the time, as I sat in the grasser's saddle and looked down at Kar Vaster, the prisoners behind us and Depa's ankkox still unseen ahead, I had only a notion-a hunch-a mass of unprocessed feelings and unsorted ideas.
An instinct.
But somehow my instincts seemed to be working again. which is why I chose to send Vastor on without me. As I asked Depa a thousand times, when she was my Padawan- Is the true lesson what the teacher teaches, or what the student learns?
A few paces beyond where the Balawai prisoners stumbled along the jungle floor, Mace Windu reached past the grasser's nose and took its reins in one hand. "This is far enough. Leave me here." Vastor stopped, looking back over his massive shoulder. Depa awaits.
"She's waited for weeks. She'll wait a few hours more." For the first time since the battle at the notch pass, Mace felt calm. Sure. On solid ground. "Go on without me. I will attend her when I choose." You are sent for. She is not to be defied. Vastor turned and tugged on the reins, but Mace had them in his fist, and they might as well have been bolted to a cliff.
Vastor's eyes flickered with distant danger: lightning from a storm below the horizon. You will regret this.
"I am a Jedi Master, and a Senior Member of the Jedi Council," Mace said patiently. "I am a general of the Grand Army of the Republic. I am not to be sent for. If she wants to see me, she will find me at the steamcrawler track before dusk." The lightning in the lor peletts eyes came closer. I have said I will deliver you.
Mace matched his stare exactly. "Funny: that's almost what Nick said. He didn't have much luck with it either." My orders- "Are your problem." Mace let the reins fall and spread his open hands. He went perfectly still, perfectly relaxed, perfectly calm, except for the sizzle of the Force that arced like static electricity from the two lightsaber handgrips to his empty palms. "Unless you choose to make them our problem. You can do that right now, if you like." Vaster let the reins drop as well. He stepped away from the grasser and turned to face the Jedi Master squarely. His immense shoulders bulged, and muscles across his chest went rigid in acid-etched definition. The air shimmered like a mirage around him: anger beat against Mace like a hot wind in the Force. You will come "with me.
"No." Dark power clutched at Mace's will. You will come with me.
Slowly, reluctantly, Mace slid himself out of the saddle and slipped to the ground. He took two steps toward Vaster.
And stopped.
"I no longer enjoy your company," the Jedi Master said. "Go now. Do not return to me without Depa." Vastor's eyes widened. His mouth worked soundlessly.
"You and I should not be alone together. There may be a fight." Tendons stood out in Vastor's neck, winching his head downward and pulling his lips away from his sharp-filed teeth.,' do not wish to fight you, doshalo. Despite the rage smoking off him in the Force, his voice was soft. Depa will be angry to find you dead.
"Then you'd best be on your way," Mace replied reasonably. "Don't want to make Depa angry, do you?" Apparently he didn't: Vastor's growl thinned to a snarl of frustration. And what should I tell her you are doing here?
"Nothing that I can be bothered to explain to you." Mace turned back to his grasser and took its reins once more. "Any questions Depa might have, she should ask me herself." Though pretending to busy himself with adjusting the grasser's tack, Mace paid absolute attention to Vastor's white-hot stare burning its way into his shoulder blades. He stayed loose and balanced, ready to spring in any direction should the lor pelek lunge for his back.
Instead, he only heard a snarl and a growl and several short, deep yips: Vaster had said something to one of the Akk Guards who watched the prisoners. With one last glare that Mace could feel as though a lens focused sunlight on his skin, Vaster whirled away and plunged into the jungle, loping up the line of march.
Mace watched him go, bleak satisfaction on his face. He thought: So much for being the welcome guest.
The Akk Guard whom Vastor had spoken to gave Mace a dire look, echoed by the three akk dogs nearby. Mace ignored them all, and a few seconds later the Akk Guard stomped off to find his partner and the other akks. Mace caught Nick Rostu's eye and beckoned. Nick turned the children's grasser over to one of the Balawai and trotted over to the Jedi Master, keeping one eye turned toward the departing Akk Guard. "Shee. Those guys give me the creeps. Looked a little tense there, Master Windu. What did the big guy say to you?" "Here, hold him." Mace handed the grasser's reins to Nick. "How much did you hear?" "Some of what you said. Got some guts, you do." Nick stretched up to scratch the grasser on the side of its neck. "But Vastor-maybe you've noticed? You can only understand him whe
n he's talking directly to you. When he's talking to somebody else, he always sounds like he's growling or whistling or making some other kind of animal noises and stuff." "Yes, I had noticed something like that," Mace said slowly, nodding. "But I'd thought it was just me. Back at the outpost. things were confusing." "That's why it's kind of like you're talking to yourself, you get it? In my head, he talks like a Pelek Baw curb-monkey. So what did he say to you?" "He was," Mace said dryly, "trying to impress me with his sense of duty." "So: what now? You didn't dust off the most dangerous man in the Korunnal Highland just to come and have a chat with the president of Rostu Jungle Nannies Inc. You have a move to make." Mace nodded. "We have a move to make. Mount up. You're going to lead these prisoners to the steamcrawler track so that the militia can find them and pick them up." iL Nick's mouth dropped open. "We. me? Why would I want to do something like that?" "Because I gave them the word of a Jedi Master that if they surrendered I would keep them from harm. I will not be made a liar." "What's your word got to do with me?" "Nothing at all," Mace said. "I'm sure you enjoy thinking about Keela being disemboweled by a vine cat. When you think of Pell, do you see her starving to death in a gripvine nest or having her eyes pecked out by jacunas?" Nick looked sick. "Hey, easy with that tusker poop, huh?" "You think the boys will be gored by tuskers, or shredded by brassvines? Maybe they'll get lucky and fall into a death hollow. At least that is relatively swift, as their lungs are eaten by caustic fumes, and their own tears scald their faces like acid." The young Korun turned away. "You have any idea what Kar and Depa will do to me?" "You've been over the ground in this region. If I lead them myself, I'll end up losing us all in the jungle. Mount up. Right now." Nick snorted. "Shee, still pretty free with the orders, aren't we? What if I just don't wanna?
What if I do like thinking about all that stuff? What if I want those people dead? What then?" Mace went still. He stared off into the jungle, his eyes filled with its darkness. "Then I will beat you into unconsciousness," he said quietly, "and ask someone else." He looked at Nick.
Nick swallowed.
Mace said, "I won't tell you again." Nick mounted up.
"Kar Vaster," the Jedi Master said, looking again into the jungle, this time up the line of march where the lor pelek had vanished, "is not the most dangerous man on the Korunnal Highland." Nick shook his head. "You only say that because you don't really know him." "I say that," Mace Windu replied, "because he doesn't know me." O
A JEDI" S WORD T, he prisoners limped along in ragged knots, holding each other up and nervously eyeing the pacing akk dogs. Mace forced his way through the tangled undergrowth toward them, Nick close behind on the grasser.
"Am I missing something here?" Nick leaned over to speak softly, one arm bent across the back of the grassers thick neck. "Last night these ruskakks were trying to carve off a hunk of roast Windu." "This tan pel'trokal." Mace's voice was equally low and far more grim. "You approve of it?" "Sure." Nick glanced at the grasser that the children rode, and swiftly looked away. "Well, in principle, anyway." His vivid eyes went narrow and cynical. "Wasn't too long ago Kar used to just kill them all. Can't afford to feed 'em. What else should we do? Givin' them the justice was Depa's call." "Oh?" "Makes sense, don't it? If the Balawai think we'll kill 'em anyway, why should they surrender? Every one of them'd fight to the death. That gets expensive, y'know? So we give 'em to the jungle. At least they got a chance." "How many survive?" ome.
"Half? A quarter? One in a hundred?" "How should I know?" Nick shrugged. "Does it make a difference?" Mace Windu said, "Not to me." Nick closed his eyes and leaned his head against the grasser's ear as though exhausted, or in pain. "You've gone bats, haven't you," he said. "You're completely insane." Mace stopped. A twitch of frown drew a vertical crease between his eyebrows. "No. Just the opposite, in fact." "What's that supposed to mean?" But Mace was already walking away.
Nick muttered a curse on all fraggin" Jedi who used nikkle nuts for brains, then goaded the grasser along after him.
When the prisoners saw them coming, a man's voice said, "It's the Jedi. No, the other one.
The raz,"Jedi." Mace thought this voice might belong to the man he'd spoken to in the steamcrawler this morning: the gray-faced one with a chest wound and a missing hand, who would not believe in a Jedi's word.
Mace chose not to ask what he meant by the real Jedi.
Some few of the prisoners clustered toward him, straightening their clothing and forcing their faces into expressions of hope; most just stopped where they were, swaying with exhaustion or stumbling against the great gray trees. Some grabbed handfuls of vines to lower themselves slowly to the ground.
A few tens of meters downslope, the two Akk Guards stared up at Mace with undisguised hostility. Two of the six akk dogs on prisoner duty slouched sullenly nearby.
The children's grasser was led by a man whom Mace recognized as Urno and Nykl's father.
The only clean spots on his dirt- and blood-smeared face were the twin tracks from his eyes to his chin, rinsed white by tears. He dropped the reins and threw himself on the ground at Mace's feet. "Please-please, Your Honor-Your Highness-" he sobbed, facedown into the jungle floor, "please don't let them kill my boys. Do what you want with me-I deserve it, I know, I'm sorry for what I done, but my boys. it's not their fault, they didn't do nothing-please, I don't-I never met a Jedi before-I don't even know what I should call you-" "Stand up," Mace said sternly. "Jedi are not to be knelt to. We are not your masters, but your servants. Stand up." Slowly, the astonished man pulled himself to his feet. The back of his hand smeared a streak of mud below his nose. "Okay," he said. "All right. What's coming to me-I can take it like a man. but my boys-" "What's coming to you is your life, and possibly your freedom as well." The man blinked, uncomprehending. "Your Honor-?" "Call me Master Windu." Mace swept past him and opened his arms, beckoning to all the prisoners. "Gather 'round. I'll need you all to stick closer together. There will not be enough of us to look after stragglers." "Sir?" Keela said as the children's grasser caught up. She had twisted sideways in the lower saddle to stare at Mace with damp, bloodshot eyes. "Sir, what are they going to do with us?
Where's Mom? Are you gonna let them put us out in the jungle?" Mace met her tear-blurred gaze squarely. "No. I'm going to send you back to the city.
You're going home. All of you." Nick muttered, "Don't make promises you can't keep." "I never do." "You don't think Kar and those Akk Guards down there are gonna have something to say about it?" "I'm aware of their opinion already. I have my own." "The tan pel'trokal-" "Means nothing to me," Mace said. "I don't care about jungle justice. I care about Jedi justice. And I will see it done." "Jedi justice, my weeping saddle sores. You still don't get it, do you? Jedi anything doesn't mean squat out here-" "I understand the rules now. You read them to me yourself; then Kar Vastor taught me what they mean. Now I can start to play." "That's just it," Nick insisted. "You're in thejung,'e, now. There are no rules." "Of course there are. Don't be an idiot." Nick blinked. "You're kidding, right? You're making a joke." "Stay here and watch," Mace told him, working his way down toward the guards. "Then tell me what you think of my sense of humor." The same Akk Guard whom Mace had kicked now moved to block the Jedi Master's path.
The swellings Vastor's fist had left on the man's face had gone as purple-black as the thickening clouds overhead. Muscle bunched like blocks of duracrete under the skin of his bare chest.
"Where going, Windu?" Mace had to tilt his head back to meet the Korun's stare. "I don't know your name." "You can call me-" "I didn't ask your name," Mace cut him off. "I jtjst don't know it. I don't need to. You should get out of my way." The guard's eyes looked scalded, and more than slightly crazed. "Out of your way, little Jedi?" "I am taking the prisoners to the steamcrawler track." Mace nodded in that general direction.
"I can go past you, or I can go over you. You pick." "Over me? Can fly, you?" The vibroshields strapped to his forearms snarled to life. He raised them to either side of Mace's face. "Draw you
r toy weapon, little Jedi. Go ahead. Draw." "My lightsaber? Why should I?" Mace raised a finger to tap his own forehead. "This is the only weapon I need." "Yeah?" A sneer: "What, think me to death, you gonna?" "You misunderstand." By way of explanation, he splattered the Korun's nose with a sharp head-butt.
The Korun staggered backward. Mace moved with him in perfect synchronization as though they were dancing, hands gripping the man's massive biceps. When the Korun started to recover his balance, his head naturally coming forward once more, Mace yanked on his arms, pulling him into another head-butt that brought Mace's forehead and the point of the Korun's chin together with a crack as sharp as a breaking rock.
Mace stepped back to let the semiconscious man collapse. The other guard snarled and lunged at Mace's back, only to find himself facing the business end of a sizzling purple lightsaber.
"He's alive," Mace said calmly. "So are you. For now. The next one of you pathetic nerfs who raises a hand to me will die for it. Do you understand?" The Korun only stared at him with murder on his face.
Shatterpoint (звёздные войны) Page 20
