Star Wars 096 - Shatterpoint

by Matthew Stover

  The shadow beckoned. Come on, then: jungle rules.

  “On the contrary,” Mace said slowly. “Jedi rules.”

  What are Jedi rules?

  “You don’t need to know,” Mace told him. “You’re not a Jedi.”

  Vibroshields whined to life. I am waiting for you, Jedi of the Windu.

  Mace extended a hand, and his lightsaber found it.

  He stood, waiting.

  You fear to attack me.

  “Jedi do not fear,” Mace said. “And we do not attack. As long as you stand in peace, so do I. You have just learned two of the Jedi rules. For what little good they will do you. You haven’t been paying very close attention, Kar. And it’s too late to start now. It’s over.”

  Nothing is over! NOTHING. Not while we both live.

  “This is another Jedi rule.” Mace took a couple of steps to one side, to find a space of floor where he didn’t have to fear tripping over a body. “If you fight a Jedi, you’ve already lost.”

  The dark shape came closer. Fine words from a man I’ve beaten before.

  “The starfighters have been ordered off. The city will stand. They’ve surrendered to the Republic. We have no reason to fight.”

  Men like us are our own reason.

  Mace shook his head. “This isn’t a big dog thing. If I must, I will hurt you. Badly.”

  You can’t bluff me.

  “No, but I can kill you. Though I would rather not.”

  More Jedi rules?

  Mace sagged. “Do you have a move to make? I’m too tired for this.”

  Sleep when you’re dead, Vastor snarled, and leaped.

  Ultrachrome flashed. Mace could have met him, blade to shields, but instead he slipped aside.

  He had no intention of fighting this man. Not here and now. Not anywhere. Not ever.

  Vastor was younger, stronger, faster, and immensely more powerful, and he wielded weapons that could not be harmed by the Jedi blade. Mace couldn’t win such a battle on his best day, and this day was far from his best: he was exhausted, badly wounded, and heartsick.

  But the fact that his lightsaber couldn’t hurt those shields didn’t make them invulnerable.

  As Vastor gathered himself to spring again, Mace reached into the Force. The vibroshield stuck into the wall above Nick’s head squealed against the bunker’s armor as it came to life and pulled itself free and streaked like a missile toward Vastor’s back.

  Vastor’s incredible reflexes whirled him, and those same reflexes snapped his shields in front of his chest in plenty of time to block—

  But they didn’t actually block anything…

  There was a reason why, when Vastor’s shields met to make that metallic howl, he always brought them together back-to-back, instead of edge-to-edge.

  The flying shield’s vibrating edge sheared through both Vastor’s shields, through both his wrists, and buried itself in the bone of his chest, stopping less than a centimeter short of his heart.

  Vastor blinked astonishment at Mace as though the Jedi Master had betrayed him.

  Mace said, “You were warned.”

  Vastor’s head shook weakly, suddenly palsied. He dropped to his knees. You’ve killed me.

  He sounded like he couldn’t make himself believe it.

  “No,” Mace said. “That’s another of the Jedi rules. Killing you is not the answer for your crimes. You’re going back to Coruscant. You’re going to stand trial.”

  Vastor swayed. His gaze went blank and blind.

  “Kar Vastor,” said Mace Windu, “you are under arrest.”

  Vastor pitched forward. Mace caught him and turned him face-up before lowering the unconscious lor pelek to the floor.

  Then he pulled himself back to his feet, leaning on the console.

  His vision grayed and lost focus; for a moment he wasn’t sure where he was. This might have been Palpatine’s office. Or the interrogation room at the Ministry of Justice. The Intel station, or the dead room at the Lorshan Pass.

  Perhaps even the Jedi Temple…but the Jedi Temple wouldn’t ever smell like this.

  Would it?

  “Master Windu?”

  He remembered the voice, and it brought him back to the command bunker.

  “Is it over?” Geptun called tentatively from the transceiver chamber. He sounded very old, and more than a little lost. “Can I come out now?”

  Mace looked down at Kar Vastor, and the spreading pool of blood in which he lay. He looked at the scattered corpses of clone troopers and militia techs. He looked at Nick Rostu, crumpled against the wall.

  “Master Windu?” Geptun’s head appeared slowly over the rim of the hole in the floor. “Did we win?”

  Mace looked at the sad, shrunken form of Depa Billaba, and thought about his victory conditions.

  “I seem to be,” Mace Windu said slowly, “the last one standing.”

  It was the only answer he had.

  FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WINDU

  I still dream of Geonosis.

  But my dreams are different, now.

  A Republic task force arrived to take possession of Haruun Kal and the Alhar system within forty-eight standard hours of my arrest of Kar Vastor; it seems they had already been dispatched to answer a distress call from the acting commander of the Halleck.

  Their landing was unopposed.

  The Republic will not occupy Haruun Kal; acting under my authority as General of the Grand Army of the Republic, I redesignated the Korunnal Highland. It is no longer enemy territory, and Haruun Kal is no longer officially a war zone. On my recommendation, the Senate has declared the combat operations on Haruun Kal to be a police action.

  Because I have decided to treat the Summertime War as a law enforcement problem.

  Which it would have always been, had the financial interests behind the thyssel bark trade not been able to buy off certain Senators and Judicial sector coordinators.

  We are in the process of disarming the jungle prospectors and the remaining bands of Korunnai guerrillas. Its going surprisingly well; the jups are terrified of Republic soldiers, and the Korunnai bands are mostly exhausted and sick. As they come to understand that they will not be mistreated, many simply surrender altogether. All charges of atrocities are being investigated. If those responsible can be identified, they will be tried, and they will be punished.

  The planetary militia remains, though at greatly reduced strength. The militia regulars will now become what they should always have been.

  Keepers of the peace. Not soldiers.

  Many of them have volunteered to be inducted into the Republic Army.

  Including, unexpectedly, Colonel Geptun.

  He has not been charged with any crime. The vast bulk of the atrocities committed against the Korunnai were done by jungle prospectors, not the militia. Even his threat of a massacre at the Lorshan Pass turns out to have been a bluff. He never ordered any such thing; in fact, the militias written rules of engagement specifically prohibit the targeting of civilians.

  Not only have I recommended he be accepted into the Grand Army of the Republic, I have already written out his transfer to Republic Intelligence.

  We will need him.

  NickI should say, Major Rostucontinues to convalesce in a medical center here on Coruscant. I do not know if I can keep my promise of a job teaching unconventional warfare, but I have no doubt we can find something for him. I have submitted a recommendation to the Senate that his brevet rank be confirmed.

  And that he be awarded the Medal of Valor for conspicuous gallantry under fire, and actions above and beyond the call of duty.

  I have also assigned to Chalk a posthumous commission. Her real name, I have learned only now, was Liane Trevval, and that name will appear in the Senate record. I gave her the commission to render her eligible for the same medal.

  I have no other way to express my respect for who she was.

  Her great akk, Galthra, has vanished. If an akks Force-bonded partner dies, i
t is customary to put the beast down, for it is not uncommon for akks who have lost their person to go insane, and vicious.

  Galthra went into the jungle. I can only hope she stays there.

  Pelek Baw will be rebuilt. There is too much money in the thyssel trade for its epicenter to lie in ruins for long. The casualties

  Are recorded elsewhere. It is a staggering number.

  No one on Haruun Kal will ever forget that night.

  Kar Vastor also continues to recover from his wounds. His hands were saved, and he is under detention here in the Jedi Temple, where his power cannot sway his jailers.

  He will not be immediately tried for the murder of Terrel Nakay; that will only be filed against him in the event of his acquittal on his initial charge. For the trial of Kar Vastor, we have revived a category of crime under which no one has been prosecuted in four thousand years: since the days of the Sith Wars.

  Kar Vastor has been charged with crimes against civilization.

  And Depa

  Depa will face the same charge.

  Someday.

  If shes ever declared competent to stand trial.

  After reading my report on Haruun Kal, Supreme Chancellor Palpatinein his characteristically warm and compassionate waytook time from his more pressing duties to come to the Temple and look in on Depa personally.

  He was accompanied by Yoda and myself; the three of us stood alone in a darkened observation room, watching through a holoviewer as three Jedi healers attended to poor Depa. She hung suspended in a bacta tank. Her eyes were opensubmerged in bacta one has no need to blinkand they stared fixedly through the transparisteel at something only she could see.

  Depa has not spokenhas not movedsince her collapse. The greatest Jedi healers of the Temple can find nothing organically wrong with her. Bacta has cured her physical wounds; it cannot touch the rest.

  When the healers touch her through the Force, all they find is darkness. Vast and featureless.

  She is lost in infinite night.

  The Supreme Chancellor watched only for a moment or two before he sighed and shook his head sadly. Still no progress, I take it?

  Yoda watched me gravely while I struggled to find words to answer. Finally he sighed and took pity on me.

  To end her life, she tried, he said. Most tragic this is: to have sunk so deeply into despair that she can no longer see light. Yet we must not follow her there; hold on to hope, we must. Recover she may. Someday.

  Though perhaps I should not have admitted it, the truth pushed its way out of me. I would almost have preferred to lose the planet, if I could have saved Depa.

  And do you know what caused her breakdown? Palpatine pressed his hand against the holoviewer, as though he could reach through it and stroke her hair. I recall that learning this was one of the stated purposes of your mission to Haruun Kal, and yet your report offers no definite conclusion.

  Slowly, I admitted, Yes. I do know.

  And?

  Its difficult to explain. Especially to a non-Jedi.

  Does it have anything to do with that scar on her forehead? Where herwhat did you call it?

  The Greater Mark of Illumination.

  Yes. Where her Mark of Illumination once was. I recognize that this is painful for you, Master Windu, but please. The Jedi are vital to the survival of the Republic, and Master Billaba is not the only Jedi we have lost to the darkness. Anything we can learn about what might cause one to fall is incredibly important.

  I nodded. But I cannot offer a specific answer.

  Well, the scar, then. Was she tortured?

  I do not know. Possibly. It is also possible that the wound was self-inflicted. We may never know.

  It is a pity, Palpatine murmured, that we cannot ask her.

  Some few seconds passed before I was able to respond. I can only speculate in general terms, based upon what she told me, and upon my own experiences.

  Palpatines eyebrows twitched upward. Your own?

  I could not meet his gaze; when I lowered my head, I found Yoda staring up at me. His wise wrinkled face was filled with ancient compassion. Fall you did not, he said softly. From this, strength you can take.

  I nodded, and found myself once again able to face the Supreme Chancellor. Its war, I said. Not just that war, but war itself. When every choice you make means death. When saving these innocents means that those innocents must die. Im not sure that any Jedi can survive such choices for long.

  Palpatine looked from Yoda to me, his face a mask of compassionate concern. Who would have thought that fighting a war could have such a terrible effect on a Jedi? Even when we win, he murmured. Who would ever have thought such a thing?

  Yes, I could only agree. Who would have thought it, indeed?

  Wonder, one must, Yoda said slowly, if that might be the most important question of all

  There followed a long, uncomfortable silence, which Palpatine finally broke. Ah, sadly, questions of philosophy must wait for peacetime. We must focus on winning this war.

  Thats what Depa did, I said. And look what it did to her.

  Ah, but such a thing could never happen tosay, for exampleyou, Palpatine said warmly. His lips wore an enigmatic smile. Could it?

  I didnt tell him that it could. That it nearly had.

  I think about that a lot, these days. I think about Depa. About everything she said to me.

  And did to me.

  I think about the jungle.

  She was right about so many things.

  She was right about her Jedi of the Future. To win this war against the Separatists, we must abandon the very thing that makes us Jedi. Yes, we won on Haruun Kalbecause our enemy broke under the club of Kar Vastors monstrous ruthlessness.

  Jedi are keepers of the peace. We are not soldiers.

  If we become soldiers, we will be Jedi no more.

  Yet I do not despair.

  She was wrong about some things, too.

  You see, she got lost fighting someone elses war. She was fighting the wrong enemy.

  The Separatists are not the true enemies of the Jedi. They are enemies of the Republic. It is the Republic which will stand or fall in the battles of the Clone War.

  Even the reborn Sith are not our enemy. Not really.

  Our enemy is power mistaken for justice.

  Our enemy is the desperation that justifies atrocity.

  The Jedis true enemy is the jungle.

  Our enemy is the darkness itself: the strangling cloud of fear and despair and anguish that this war brings with it. That is poisoning our galaxy. This is why my dreams of Geonosis are different now.

  In my dreams, I still do everything right.

  But I do in my dreams exactly what I did in that arena.

  If the prophecies are trueif Anakin Skywalker is truly the Chosen One, who will bring balance to the Forcethen he is the most important being alive today. And he is alive today because my Jedi instincts were working just fine.

  Because my mistake on Geonosis wasnt a mistake at all.

  If I had done as Depa said I should haveif I had won the Clone War with a baradium bomb on GeonosisI would have lost the real war. The Jedis war.

  Anakin Skywalker may be the shatterpoint of our war against the jungle.

  If he isif Anakin is the being born to win that warit does not matter if every other Jedi in the galaxy dies.

  As long as Anakin lives, we have hope. No matter how dark it gets, or how lost our cause may seem.

  He is our new hope for a Jedi future.

  May the Force be with us all.

  EQUIPMENT

  A Personal Account of the Sub-orbital

  Action at Haruun Kal, as reported by Auxiliary

  Heavy-Weapons Specialist CT-6/774.

  By Matthew Stover

  We popped out of hyperspace above the plane of the ecliptic. Al’har’s light was brilliant yellow. Haruun Kal was a bright blue-green crescent. Two asteroid belts sparkled yellow among the black-and-white starfield: one beyond Haruun
Kal’s orbit, vast and old, spreading toward the gas giants that swung through the outer system, and a smaller, younger belt in orbit around the planet itself: remnants of what once had been the planet’s moon.

  I snugged my helmet and checked my armor’s life-support parameters, then dogged the transparisteel hatch of the bubble turret.

  My helmet’s speakers crackled softly. “Comm check,” Lieutenant Four-One said.

  The Lieutenant’s our pilot. The 2nd Lou, CL-33/890, handles nav. He checked in with a “Nav is go.” I reported my turret as go, and my port-side partner, CT-014/783, did the same from his.

  The Halleck swung down out of interstellar space and inserted into planetary orbit almost halfway out to the moon-belt, more than ten thousand klicks from the surface. Intel had reported a rumor that Haruun Kal might have a small number of planetary-defense ion cannons, and a medium cruiser is a very large target.

  Just before we lit engines and lifted out of the Halleck’s ship bay, I clicked my comm over to the dedicated turret-freq. “Take care of the equipment. Eight-Three.”

  My partner answered the way he always does: “And the equipment will take care of us, Seven-Four.”

  That’s how we wish each other luck.

  The mag-screen de-powered. The ship bay’s atmosphere gusted out toward the star in a billow of glittering ice crystals.

  Blue-white pinpoints fanned out before us: ion drives of our starfighter escort. The transparisteel of my bubble-turret hummed with sympathetic resonance as one of the Jadthu-class landers undocked and followed them, then it was our turn.

  Our flight leader took point. We sucked ions on left wing. Five gunships left the Halleck.

  None would come back.

  Take care of your equipment, and your equipment will take care of you.

  That’s one of the first things they teach us in the creche-schools on Kamino. Even before we’re awake. By the time we are brought to consciousness for skills-development, the knowledge pumps have drilled “Take care of your equipment” so deeply into our minds that it’s more than instinct. It’s practically natural law. We live or die by our equipment.