"Locked." Purple energy flared. Durasteel sizzled. White-hot edges dulled to red, then darkened entirely. Mace said, "No, it isn't." The noncom used the barrel of his blaster rifle as a pry bar to swing open the door. "Hey, what are you guys doing here?" The broad sculpted lobby of the Washeteria had been turned into a heavy-weapons nest. A platoon of militia crouched, squatted, or lay behind temporary barriers of expanded permacrete.
Tripod-mounted repeaters were levelled at the open door. The men's faces were drawn, their eyes round and haunted; here and there a rifle muzzle trembled.
An oddly familiar voice replied, "A guy might want to ask you the same question." "Well, I captured that Jedi everybody's looking for, didn't I," the noncom said. "Here, come on in." Mace stepped around the open door.
"You!" It was the big man from the spaceport pro-bi showers, and he didn't look frightened at all.
Mace said, "How's your nose?" The big man went for his sidearm with an impressively swift draw.
Mace's was faster.
By the time the big man's blaster cleared his holster, Mace was staring at him past the sizzling purple fountain of his blade. "Don't." Nick said, "You guys know each other?" The big man held the blaster steady, aimed at Mace's upper lip. He said sourly, " Capturedhim, did you?" "Uh, sure, Lieutenant-" The noncom blinked uncertainly. "Well, okay, they surrendered, but it's the same thing, right? I mean, he's here, ain't he?" "Stand away from them. All of you. Right now." The squad scattered.
Mace said, "I need to see Colonel Geptun." "Y'know, that's a funny thing." The big lieutenant squinted past his blaster's sights. "Because he don't want to see you. He told me specifically. About you. He said you might show up here. He said you're supposed to be shot on sight." "Shooting at Jedi," Mace said, "is a losing proposition." "Yeah, I've heard that." "Lieutenant, do you have a family?" The officer scowled. "None of your business." "Have you looked outside recently?" The big man's jaw tightened. He didn't answer. He didn't have to.
Mace said, "I can stop it. Those ships your droids are chasing are piloted by men under my command. But if something were to happen to me…" The big man's chin drew down stubbornly. His men frowned at each other; some bit their lips or shifted their weight. One of them said doubtfully, "Hey, Lou, y'know-I got two kids, and Gemmy's up with another-" "Shut it." "Your choice is straightforward," Mace said. "You can follow orders and open fire. Most of you will die. And your families will be left out there. Without you. And without any hope other than that their deaths might be quick.
"Or you can bring me to Colonel Geptun. Save hundreds of thousands of lives. Including your own.
"Do your duty. Or do what's right. It's up to you." The big man ground out his words between clenched teeth. "You know the last time I could breathe okay?" he growled, pointing at his nose. "Guess. Go on. Guess." "Yours is not the only nose I've broken on this planet," Mace said evenly. "And you deserved it more than he did." The big man's knuckles whitened on the blaster.
Mace lowered his lightsaber but kept its blade humming. "Why don't you call the colonel and ask? It is possible," he said with half a nod back toward the bloody chaos outside, "that he has changed his mind." The lieutenant's scowl thickened until it broke under its own weight. He shook his head disgustedly and let his gun arm fall to his side. "They don't pay me enough for this." He came out from behind the permacrete barrier and went to the house comm at the hostess desk. A brief conversation went on in undertones. When it was over, he looked even more disgusted. He returned his blaster to its holster and waved his empty hand at his men. "Awright, stand down, everybody. Put 'em away." While his men complied, he walked over to Mace. "I'll need your weapons." From behind Mace's shoulder, Nick said, "You don't have to take our weapons." "Don't quit your day job, kid." The lieutenant held out his hand. "Come on: I can't bring you down there armed." Mace silently handed over his lightsaber. Nick flushed while he dangled his pistols from one finger through each trigger guard.
The lieutenant took both pistols in one hand, and weighed Mace's lightsaber in the palm of the other. He gave it a thoughtful frown. "The colonel said you're Mace Windu." "Did he?" The officer looked the Jedi Master in the eye. "Is it true? You're really him? Mace Windu?" Mace admitted it.
"Then maybe I don't mind the nose so much." The big man shook his head ruefully. "I guess I'm lucky to be alive at all, huh?" "You," Mace said, "should consider a new line of work." The entrance to the Republic Intelligence station was a waterproof hatch; it was disguised as part of the checkered tile pattern on the bottom of a steaming mineral bath fed by the natural hot springs below the Washeteria. The lieutenant led Mace and Nick to a wading-stair from the deck down into the shallow end. Two sweating regulars brought up the rear, rifles slanted across their chests.
Nick made a face. "Stinks in here. People really want to go in that?" "Not many, I bet," the big man said. "If they did, it wouldn't make a real good secret entrance, would it?" A concealed latch opened a code panel that swung down from the stair rail. The lieutenant tucked Mace's lightsaber under his arm so he could punch some keys, and the field generator built into the stairs and the pool floor hummed to life. An electric crackle heralded the opening of a channel; walls of sizzling energy held back the sul-furously steaming water. Toward the deep end the channel became a tunnel. Another code panel opened the waterproof hatch, and openwork stairs with drains beneath them led down into a dry, brightly lit room filled with the very latest electronic surveillance, code-breaking, and communications equipment.
A handful of people in civilian clothes monitored the various stations like they knew what they were doing. There was an undertone of insistent muttering, and many of the console monitors showed only snow.
The lieutenant showed them to a small gloomy chamber with holoviewer walls and a heavy lammas table in the center. The only light in the chamber came from the holoviewers: they showed realtime images of the city. The ceiling sparkled with swooping droid starfighters and the hurtling ships they pursued. Burning buildings cast a dull flickering rose-colored glow that silhouetted a small plump man seated at the far end of the table.
"Master Windu. Please come in." Geptun's voice was thin, and the self-deprecating chuckle he offered had a fragile edge. "It appears that I miscalculated." Mace said, "We both did." "I never suspected that Jedi could be capable of such. savagery." "Neither did I." "People are dying out there, Windu! Civilians. Children." "If your concern for children had included Korunnai, we wouldn't be here right now." "Is that what this is? Revenge?" The colonel sprang jerkily to his feet. "Do Jedi take revenge? How can you do this? How can you do "You are not the only one," Mace said evenly, "with unreliable subordinates." "Ah-" Geptun sank slowly back into his chair and lowered his head into his hands. A weak, sickly laugh shook his shoulders. "I understand. I didn't misjudge you. You misjudged jour people. This is all your mistake, not mine." "There will be plenty of guilt to go around. All that is important right now is the power to make it stop." "And you have this power?" "No," Mace said. "You do." "You think I haven't fried"? You think I don't have every person in this station working to deactivate those starfighters? Look at this-you see all this?" Geptun's voice was going shrill. A shadow-wave of a trembling hand swept the images on the walls and ceiling. "These are land- line sensors. Hard-wired. Want to see our remotes'?" He stabbed a control on the tabletop. All four walls and the ceiling fuzzed to eye-stinging white snow.