Mace's stare burned like the city around him.
He did understand. Finally. Too late.
He had no words for what he felt. Perhaps there were no words.
I called to say good-bye, doshalo. Depa will remember you fondly. As will we all. It is a hero's death you go to, Mace of the Windu.
Mace showed his own teeth. "I'm not dead yet." IlLfT OIU V Ll't't Vastor's blue-imaged head tilted a centimeter to the right. What time is it?
Mace froze.
A metallic clank echoed in his memory.
A clank that might have been deactivated vibroshields hitting the nose armor of a Sienar Turbostorm.
Or- Not.
"Nick. 1" Mace's sudden shout shocked the young Korun like a shot from a stun baton.
"Hang onf "Hang on to whatTT't'ti& arming levers on the seat ejectors flipped up; Nick swore and threw his arms around Chalk half a second before the triggers pressed themselves and explosive bolts blew the windscreen up and out and her chair shot toward the rooftops, out of balance and tumbling into the night sky as the time fuse on the proton grenade Vaster had mag-clamped to the Turbostorm's nose precisely where its shaped charge would blow a dozen kilos of shredded armor plate through the cockpit sideways- Detonated.
Mace found them by following his Force-link with Nick.
Double-loaded and out of balance, Chalk's ejector chair had carried them only as far as a black rooftop, flat and sticky with tar, before crashing to spill them across it. Flames from other buildings around lit its walls and cast its square shadow toward the stars.
Nick's silent silhouette knelt with bowed head beside her. His hand gently stroked bloody tangles of hair away from her face; tears from his eyes fell to her cheeks, as though death had finally allowed this tough girl to weep.
Mace stood at the roof's rim and looked out across the city.
His chair had carried him a dozen blocks away. He had come here on foot.
The streets were a nightmare.
Cannonfire rained at random. Missiles that had lost their targets blasted groundcars and streets vendor stalls. People ran and screamed. Many were armed. More carried bundles of valuables saved-more often looted-from burning buildings. Bodies lay sprawled on the pavement, ignored except for the curse they would get when someone tripped over them in blind panic.
He'd seen a little girl clutching the bloody tatters of a corpse's dress while she tried to scream life back into its body.
He'd seen a Wookiee and a Yuzzem locked together, clawing and biting and shredding each other, howls of terrified rage muffled by mouthfuls of each other's flesh and fur.
He'd seen a man not two meters in front of him chopped in half by a blasted-free hull plate that had fallen from the sky like a tabletop-sized cleaver.
From the rooftop, the capital of Haruun Kal looked like a night-shrouded volcanic plain: a vast dark field pocked with calderae that opened on hell. Clone-piloted ships streaked and spun and rolled, desperately dodging starfighters that swooped and dived and spat flame. In those contests it didn't matter who won; the city lost.
Pelek Baw had always been a jungle, but only in a metaphoric sense. Vaster had brought the real one.
He was the real one.
And he was eating this city alive.
"I always used to." Nick's voice was soft. Almost expressionless. Just slow, and faintly puzzled. He still knelt over her. "I used to, y'know, kind of think. y'know, maybe someday, when I leave this fraggin' planet." He shook his head helplessly. "I always kind of thought she'd be coming with me." "Nick-" "Not that I asked her, you understand. No. Not that I ever had the guts to say anything to her. About that. About-" He lifted his face to the cold distant stars. "About us. It just. it was just, y'know, just never the right time. And I kind of thought she knew. I hope she knew." "Nick, I'm sorry. I cannot tell you how sorry I am." "Yeah." Nick nodded slowly, pensively, as though each motion of his head welded another layer of armor around his grief. Then he sucked air through his teeth and shoved himself to his feet. "Lots of people are sorry tonight." He had her gunbelt in his hands.
He moved to the roof rim to stand beside Mace and look out across the burning city.
"They're all against us now," he said softly. "Not just the militia and the droids." "Yes." He buckled Chalk's gunbelt around his waist, and tied her holster down to his left thigh, to match his own on his right. "They've turned on us. All of them. Kar and his Akks. Depa. Even the clones." "The clones," Mace said distantly, "are only following orders." "Orders from our enemies." Now it was Mace's turn to lower his head: Mace's turn to nod layers of armor around his own grief. "Yes." "And on our side-it's us. You and me. Nobody else." He drew her gun, smooth and fast, checking its heft and balance. He popped the clip and snapped it back in. "Y'know, Kar saved her life." He spun the pistol forward, then reversed it so that its own spin slipped it snugly into the holster. "Temporarily." Mace murmured, "It's always temporary." He stared down into the pandemonium on the street. An armored groundcar filled with militia swung around a corner. The gunner on the roof-mounted EWHB-10 fired short bursts into the air to clear the road; some of the armed looters returned fire.
Nick said softly, "You got any idea what we're gonna do?" Before Mace could speak, Nick smiled tiredly and raised a hand. "Don't bother. I know what you're about to say." "I don't think you do." Mace gave the militia vehicle below a speculative frown.
"We're going to surrender." SURRENDER T
he Highland Green Washeteria was an imposing verdigris-domed edifice of gleaming white tile set off by obsidian grout. When the groundcar pulled up to it, its sign was dark and its elaborate array of arched windows were sealed by durasteel blast shutters.
A block away, the streets were choked with burning wreckage; here, all was dark and still.
The squad's noncom peered dimly through the groundcar's windscreen. "Dunno why the colonel'd be here" he said doubtfully.
"Maybe he wants a bath," Nick said dryly from the rear compartment, where he sat among the other four sweaty, tired-looking regulars. "Which wouldn't do any of you guys any harm either, I mean, shee." "He's here," Mace said from the front seat next to the noncom. "Let's get out." "I guess he could be here," the noncom admitted reluctantly. "Okay, everybody out." As the squad piled out onto the walkway, the noncom muttered, "I still think we shoulda tried the Ministry. And I probably oughta put binders on you, too." "There's no reason to go to the Ministry," Mace said. "And you don't need the binders." "Ahh, frag the binders anyway. Okay, let's go." The noncom tried the blast-shuttered door.