Shatterpoint (звёздные войны)

by Matthew Stover

  Mace's knee caught him a decimeter below the navel.

  This brought a sharper grunt and a snarl that vibrated in Mace's neck, but instead of withdrawing his knee for another strike, Mace dug it in harder, forcing Vastor's body away from his own. This created just enough space that Mace could slip one arm up between their chests, and could stab his stiffened fingers into the notch of Vastor's collarbone.

  And shove.

  With a convulsive gasp of astonishment, the lor pelek released Mace's neck. Mace kept on shoving, jamming his fingers into Vastor's windpipe. Vaster gagged, and his massive arms loosened.

  They fell together, tumbling, and as Mace finally pushed Vastor off him he managed to sneak in a quick snapping kick to the point of Vastor's chin that sent the lor pelek whirling like a topspun ball.

  Mace recovered his Force-touch in time to flip upright and land in a balanced crouch; Vastor landed on all fours, absorbing the shock as effortlessly as a vine cat.

  They looked at each other.

  Blood ran from the bite wound on Mace's neck, painting his shoulder and part of his chest scarlet, but it was only a trail, not a jet: the artery must have remained intact. A similar trail rolled from Vastor's split cheek and dripped from his jaw.

  Neither man appeared to notice.

  Vastor's growl resonated in Mace's chest. Not many men can break my grip. You won't do it twice.

  Mace didn't answer. Vastor was probably right.

  He was suddenly, acutely aware that he hadn't slept since the night before the fight in the notch pass. The night when a bark-drunk Lesh had come to him in tears, to tell him what Kar and the Akk Guards would teach him, if he lived long enough.

  It seemed like years ago.

  He wondered briefly if the lor pelek would have gone ahead and torn out his throat despite what he claimed Depa had told him, or if he would have settled for the strangle.

  He decided he could live without knowing the answer.

  That is, if he lived at all.

  Vastor stalked toward him on all fours. Was that Jedi fighting? Poking and pinching? A little jab to stop the big dog? I am not impressed.

  Mace stood motionless except for the heaving of his chest. He knew already he could not match Vastor for raw power. With each breath, he stripped away another layer of restraint and inhibition. Another layer of serenity. He had to move his inner peace out of the way to let in the joy. The thrill. The sheer okay-why-not-let's-FIGHT. Because Vaapad was more than just a form of lightsaber combat.

  It was a state of mind.

  Night had deepened upon the jungle, and around them glowvines began to pulse faintly. To use Vaapad now, out here, was incredibly dangerous-almost as dangerous as not using Vaapad.

  The ultimate answer for power is skill.

  "Want to be impressed?" Mace said. "Let's see the impression my boot makes on your face." Without warning, Vastor's stalk became a lightning lunge, fingers hooked like talons, his arms sweeping wide to close on Mace once more-but Mace wasn't there anymore. A slight sidestep and a weave of his head snuck him to the outside of Vastor's lunge, and his fist whipped backhand to snap Vastor in the base of the skull as he passed: a knockout blow.

  But Vastor must have felt it coming; he pitched forward, rolling with the punch so that it flipped him end for end. He landed in perfect balance and sprang again, straight up; the kick Mace had aimed at his kidneys only grazed his calf muscle. He used the impact to whirl in the air so that he could fall upon the Jedi Master like a branch leopard taking a tusker.

  But what he fell upon was Mace's fist, driven upward into his solar plexus by the combined power of the Force and nearly fifty years of Jedi combat training.

  Mace's hand sank in to the wrist, and Vastor's fighting snarl became an agonized struggle for breath. Mace used the Force to hurl him off and send him tumbling through the air to slam into the flank of an agitated akk dog. Eyes glazing, half stunned, the lor pelek slid bonelessly down the akk's armored ribs, and staggered as his feet skidded over gnarled roots.

  Before he could find his balance, Mace was on him. "Impressed yet?" Standing toe to toe, the top of Mace's head barely came to the level of Vastor's chin, and you could have tucked Mace's whole thick-muscled upper body inside Vastor's chest with room to spare. And even hurt, lurching drunkenly, Vaster still could whip his arms in blindingly fast raking slaps at Mace's head and wounded neck. But where Vastor's speed was blinding, Mace's was invisible. Not one of those slaps connected.

  Before Vastor could even focus his eyes, Mace had hit him six times: two thundering hooks to his short ribs, a knee slamming hard into the same thigh he'd hit before, an elbow snapping up to the point of his chin, and two devastating palm strikes to either hinge of his jaw.

  An ordinary man would have been unconscious. Vastor seemed to be getting stronger.

  Vastor fired another of those blinding slaps. This time, instead of ducking, Mace countered with a whirring hook that met the lor peleKs swinging arm directly on the nerve that ran up the inside of the biceps. Vastor threw the other even harder-which only made the inside of that arm connect that much harder with Mace's coun-terhook.

  Vastor's mighty arms spasmed and dropped limply to his sides. "This is called Vaapad, Kar." A fierce light burned in Mace's eyes. "How many arms do you see?" Then he hit Vastor twice in the nose before the lor pelek could even blink.

  Vastor howled in pain and raging disbelief, falling back against the akk dog's flank once more, twisting and turning to try to find some way to avoid the Jedi's flashing hands.

  Mace stayed with him, pinning him to the akk's flank, fists whirling through Vaapad flurries, striking not to disable or to kill, i IILII OIUTLI't't but instead to hurt: stinging flicks to soft tissue, smashing ears and nose, stabbing up under the chin.

  The akk dog suddenly lurched away from them, giving Vastor half a meter of clearance. The lor pelek sprang sideways, diving away.

  Mace let him go. "Go on and run, Kar. This is over. You lose. I'm the big dog here-" Vastor turned his dive into a roll and spun to face the Jedi Master from one knee, and before Mace had even finished speaking the Force whirled around him and Mace found himself wrenched off the ground, hurtling backward through the air to slam against the smooth-barked gray trunk of a meter-thick lammas tree. The whole tree shivered with the impact, and a spiral galaxy birthed itself inside Mace's head.

  He thought, I was wondering when we'd get to this part.

  Vastor's face tightened. Strength must have been returning to his nerve-punched arms already, because he managed to raise one and gesture as though throwing a stone; Mace was whirled forward from the tree to crash against the skull of an astonished akk dog.

  The impact folded him over the dog's head and blasted the breath from his lungs; the dog's crown spines gashed Mace's abdomen, and when it tossed Mace aside with a twitch of its head like a Nymalian water-ox, his blood ran down the black outer shells of its eyes.

  Jedi Padawans learn to counter Force kinesis before they even begin lightsaber training. Still in the air, Mace sensed the flow of power that held Vastor's grip upon him; with a sigh, he allowed his center-Vastor's point of Force contact-to relax and ground Vastor's power back into the jungle around them.

  And that jungle came to life.

  A gripleaf trailer snaked down from above and seized one of Mace's ankles in its unbreakable clutch. His airborne tumble became a wide-swinging head-down arc.

  Gripleaf trailers only grew tighter as their victim struggled, and their fibers were nearly as strong as durasteel cable; they could not be broken by mortal strength. This one squeezed his ankle, drawing blood with the edges of its sharp waxy leaves. Another trailer reached toward his other ankle, and from his upside-down vantage he could see a thick blade-thorned length of brassvine curving toward his neck.

  He almost reached into the Force for his lightsaber- But that would be admitting defeat.

  Time to be clever.

  He used the Force to shove the gripleaf tr
ailer so that the arc of his swing sent him whirling out over the ring of dogs and men. One of the Akk Guards smirked at him as he swung overhead: "Big dog? More like little tusk-pig." When his swing carried him back in, Mace reached down and grabbed the Akk Guard by the arm, yanking him into the air. Drawing upon the Force for a burst of strength, Mace whipped the astonished Guard up and over and used the edge of his razor-sharp shield to slice through the trailer before releasing him to flail helplessly through the air and crash into the jungle darkness.

  Mace turned his own fall into a flip that landed him on an akk dog's shoulders. He bounded off into the air- And Vaster's Force grip seized him again.

  Vaster was on his feet now, and his arms didn't seem hurt at all. His blood-smeared mouth spread wide in a howl of triumph as he yanked Mace through the multicolored glowvine-shaded night, pulling him in while he opened his arms for that lethal embrace.

  Mace thought: Well, if you insist.

  Instead of resisting or grounding the power of Vastor's Force grip, Mace added his own strength to it. The speed of his flight suddenly doubled; Vastor had only time to widen his eyes in dismay as Mace flipped headfirst in the air. The top of his head speared into Vastor's gut and drove the lor pelek to the ground as though he'd been hit by a concussion missile.

  On the other hand, Vastor's stomach wasn't much softer than that lammas he'd slammed Mace into; the impact didn't do Mace's head a lot of good, either.

  Another spiral galaxy blossomed where the first had been as Mace rolled off him, lying on his back while he watched stellar clusters wheel inside his skull. Vastor lay beside him, making faint panting noises while he tried to pull air into his spasming chest.

  Vastor's breath began to return in great whooping gasps, and Mace knew his time was running out. He shook the stars out of his head and reached down to his ankle to unwrap the severed gripleaf trailer. Limp now, dying, it was unresisting as an ordinary rope; Mace took one end in each fist, and as Vastor rolled over and gained his hands and knees, Mace slipped a loop of the trailer over the lorpelek's head from behind and tightened it around his throat.

  Vastor straightened and his hands went to his throat, clawing at Mace's improvised garrote, but not even he was strong enough to break a gripleaf trailer with his bare hands. His face darkened, swelling with blood; the back of his neck bulged; veins writhed across his temples and forehead.

  Ten seconds, Mace thought, hanging on, wedging his knees into Vastor's back. Ten seconds and out.

  Vastor got one foot under him.

  Mace swallowed, gasping for breath as he tried to tighten the trailer around the lorpeleKs throat.

  Pure will powered Vastor to his feet. He didn't even seem to notice the weight of a large Jedi Master hanging down his back.

  Mace thought: Here it comes.

  In an eyeblink, Vastor's grip shifted from the gripleaf trailer to Mace's wrists. He threw himself forward, bent at the waist, and with a surge of incredible strength yanked the Jedi Master over his head and slammed him bodily to the dirt.

  The impact replaced the stars in Mace's head with billowing black nebulae; he'd never gotten his breath back properly after landing on the akk dog, and now he couldn't breathe at all. The jungle above faded into a black haze; through the darkness descending inside his skull, he barely caught a glimpse of Vastor leaping into the air to drop a body-slam that would finish him. With a gasp, he rolled aside, and Vastor landed hard on the ground beside him.

  Mace dizzily tried to pull himself up to his hands and knees; Vastor was still down, his hands clawing weakly at Mace's flanks.

  Mace pushed him off and made it to his knees. Vaster rolled onto his side, found a tree trunk, and pulled himself up it, leaning on it drunkenly.

  Though Mace couldn't breathe-could barely see through the black-and-red haze inside his head-he could draw upon the Force to throw himself upright, and he lunged at Vaster, whirling, hands clasped together to deliver every erg of power at his command into one last thundering punch that lifted Vaster bodily off the ground, flipped him over backward, and dropped him on the back of his neck.

  Mace swayed, almost out on his feet. The jungle hazed in and out of focus. All he could clearly see was the lorpelek climbing to his feet.

  Vaster was smiling.

  Is that the best you have?

  "I'm just-" Mace gasped for breath. His arms came up slowly; each one felt like it was made out of collapsium. "Just getting started-" One of those open-handed slaps flashed out of the darkness; the next thing of which Mace was aware was a bell-like ringing in his ears, and the grip of Vastor's huge hand around his neck, holding him up off the jungle floor.

  Mace's eyelids fluttered open. Vastor's blood-smeared grin was the only thing in the world.

  Vaster growled, How many arms do you see?

  Mace didn't answer.

  He certainly didn't see the one attached to the hand that snuffed the world like a blown-out candle.

  In the darkness, a smell of ammonia and rotten meat: predator breath.

  A dry rough tongue the size of his lost kitbag licked him back to consciousness, and Mace opened his eyes.

  The Akk Guards were crowded around him, leaning over, their faces in deep shadow, haloed by the pulsing light of the glowvines in the canopy; one now pushed the nose of the akk dog who'd been licking Mace's unconscious body so that the great beast backed up.

  Kar Vaster stepped into the gap. He squatted on his haunches at Mace's side. His face was lumped up, and blood still trickled from his split cheek, but his grin was fiercer than ever.

  He barked something, and one of the Akk Guards stepped away for a brief moment. Mace heard Nick say, "Hey, cut it out. Hey, ow, huh? Come on, lay off the arm, you know I'm good for it-" The Akk Guard returned, dragging Nick.

  Vaster growled.

  Nick said, "Hey, why are you telling me-?" Vastor's growl sharpened, and Nick flinched away from him. He looked uncertainly up at the Akk Guard who held his arm, back at Vastor, then down at Mace.

  "He, uh-" Nick swallowed hard. "-he wants me to say so everybody hears it: You can get up, if you want." Mace's eyes drifted closed. He didn't answer.

  Vastor made a rumbling noise.

  "He says, Come on. You wanted to be the big dog. Get up and fight." Nick lowered his voice. "I mean, you can get up, right? If you want to-I mean, I got odds, it's worth jive hundred creds, I'll split it with you-" Mace opened his eyes. "No." Vastor's rumble broadened humorously, as though the lorpelek was a groundquake telling a joke.

  "Um, he-he wants to know, No, what? That is-y'know, no to the money?" "No," Mace said. He couldn't find a place on his body that did not hurt. "No more fighting.

  I've had enough. You win." Vastor seized Mace's shoulder in one enormous hand and stood, pulling the Jedi Master upright without apparent effort. Now his growl once more became words in Mace's mind.

  Tell them. Tell them who is the big dog here.

  Mace hung his head, careful not to meet Vastor's eye. "You are." He coughed, and blood bubbled from his smashed mouth. "You're the big dog." Nick looked stricken.

  Tell them you were wrong to take my prisoners. Tell them you were wrong to let them go.

  Mace kept his eyes on the ground at his feet. Blood from the shallow akk-spine gouges in his belly ran down his legs. "I was wrong to take your prisoners. I was wrong to let them go." Tell them you are sorry that you challenged me, and you will never do it again.

  Mace's only motion was to glance up at the howdah on the back of the ankkox. Now after dark, the curtains were opaque. He couldn't tell if Depa was even in there.

  He lowered his head once more.

  "I am sorry that I challenged you. I will never challenge you again." A twitch of motion in his peripheral vision: Nick had let Mace's vest unroll from his hand.

  Now he held it alongside his leg. He gave it another suggestive twitch.

  Mace could feel the lightsaber within it.

  He met Nick's eye. Nick deliberately looked aw
ay, miming a nonchalant whistle, while he twitched the vest one more time.

  A twist of the Force-no more effort than Nick expended to wiggle the vest-would bring that lightsaber to Mace's hands.

  Mace said slowly, "Kar?" Vaster hummed a yes.

  "My weapon is in that vest. May I have it?" He kept his eyes fixed resolutely on the,'orpe,'ek's chest. "Please?" Vaster released his shoulder with a contemptuous shove, and extended a hand for the vest.

  Nick looked at Mace with open shock, as though he'd been unexpectedly betrayed.

  Mace looked at the ground.

  Vaster took the vest, and pulled Mace's lightsaber out of its pocket. This is yours?