The scene, frozen in time, locked in the amber of Mace's Force-sense: Vaster standing with arms folded, not the slightest hint of threat, his shields pushed high on his arms, those arms still crossed to bury the lightsabers that he held under his massive biceps- Mace beside him, exposed on the lip of the cliff, unarmed- Gunships rippling the jungle canopy far below in shock wakes, silent with distance- Nick behind in the cave, rifle leaning against the rock, one hand yanking the butt of his bolstered pistol in a draw that to ordinary eyes would be blinding- And a man hidden in the shadows of the jungle a kilometer away, smoothly squeezing the trigger of a high-powered sniper's blaster rifle to send one single packet of murderous scarlet energy clawing up toward the meadow from the jungle below- Centered on Mace Windu's heart.
All this Mace kenned in a single instant, effortlessly, and the shat-terpoint he found and struck by instinct was Vastor's balance at the lip of the cliff.
Calmly, without any particular haste, Mace put his hand on Vastor's shoulder and gave the lorpelek a shove.
Over the edge.
Vastor's eyes bulged astonishment as he toppled forward and his arms uncrossed to windmill for his balance. His teetering swung his head just far enough in the right direction that the bullet from Nick's slug pistol scorched Vastor's temple instead of blowing his brains out through his eyes; as his arms whirled, his grip on the lightsabers loosened. Mace reached into the Force, snatching them both, triggering them to flaring life and bringing them to his hands with an easy six or seven milliseconds to spare before he needed them to splatter aside the bolt from the jungle below.
Vastor's vine cat reflexes whirled him in the air and latched his hands onto the rock face a meter below the lip of the cliff. His confederate in the jungle poured fire up at Mace to drive him back, while Nick ran out of the cave behind him, shouting "Did I get him? Is he dead1? Is he dead?" until Vaster threw himself back up into the meadow, bringing his vibroshields into fighting position with a surge of the Force.
Nick fired as fast as his finger could jerk the pistol's trigger and bullets clanged off Vastor's flashing shields- And Mace just stood there.
Staring into his blade.
In the Force, the world had turned to crystal.
The purple flame of his blade splintered flaws throughout the planet. Stress fractures spidered from his blade to Vaster, to Nick, into the mountain behind, into the pass below, and to space above, racing in outrippling waves that joined him with what was, but also with what had been, and what would be.
Triggering his blade here, now: it was a shatterpoint of the Summertime War.
His consciousness splintered along with the world, flashing instantly along the fault lines and vectors of effect: for a single instant, he was in direct and intimate contact with many different times and places.
He saw it all.
As though from some impossible distance, he saw the Balawai prisoners kneeling on the promontory, and how gunships had arrived almost before he'd even lit the wood he'd piled up to make a signal fire.
He saw the gunships arrive at the outpost, only minutes after he had ignited this weapon to defend the children in the bunker from the hasty fire of their own people's weapons.
He saw Vaster below the outpost's ruins, and heard again his growled meaning: My men say you drove them off single-handed, though they did not seem to be damaged. Perhaps you have taught Balawai to fear thejedi blade.
But they did not fear it, he knew.
He saw the gunships at the notch pass: flying away only seconds after he first flashed his blades. They had been ordered to withdraw.
Because he'd been alone.
Because if he was killed before he reached Depa and her guerrilla it wouldn't solve the militia's Jedi problem.
He saw himself in the Pelek Baw alley, staring in disbelief at h depowered lightsaber.
He saw the hours he'd spent in the binder chair in that dirty rooi in the Ministry of Justice, waiting; that long wait hadn't been an ir terrogation technique. Geptun had never intended to interrogai him in the first place.
Following that stress fault back in time, he saw a shielded room i the Ministry of Justice, where technicians made cut after cut with h lightsaber. Where they had shot the blade with blaster bolts and bu lets, and used it to cut thyssel, and lammas, and portaak leave duracrete, transparisteel.
So that they could measure and record the emission signature this blade.
So that their satellites would recognize it whenever it was usei No matter what it might be used for.
That's why his blade had been out of charge. Geptun had prob; bly had no idea about that upcountry team; he'd wanted Mace to g out of Pelek Baw.
Wanted him to make contact with Depa and the "ULF." Wanted to find where all the missing Korunnai had been hiding Now in the meadow, other stress faults connected his mind ' dozens of gunships that converged on the Lorshan Pass. Gunshi] packed with eager troops, trailing billows of hate and fear and fieri anticipation like the ash plume from an erupting volcano.
One fracture terminated at an orbiting satellite that whizzt across the face of the planet at almost twenty-eight thousand kil meters per hour, and through the fracture he could feel a sil con brain make an electronic connection. He could feel tl execution of a simple command program, and he could feel aut mated clamps releasing huge durasteel bars layered in ablati1 shielding, and he could feel primitive guidance jets driving them in the atmosphere at an angle too steep for any spacecraft to survive.
But these were not spacecraft, and they were not intended to survive.
Vaster was still in the air, and Nick was still twisting to track him with his blazing pistol, when Mace Windu whipped his arms straight and shouted, "Stop!" The Force blasts that accompanied the Jedi Master's command clubbed Nick to the ground and sent Vaster spinning against the mountain's face above the cave.
"What are you doing?" Nick rolled to his feet and snapped the pistol back into line. "He just tried to frag you-kill him!" Vaster crouched above, clinging to the rock like a krayt dragon. No more talking. It is time to fight.
"Yes," Mace Windu said. "But not each other. Look around you!" He swung his arm toward the jungle below the pass.
All the patrolling gunships, the dozens that had leisurely crisscrossed the jungle all these past days, now traced converging streaks that would intersect at the Lorshan Pass.
Nick swore, and Vaster's growl lost meaning.
"And there," Mace said, pointing to what seemed to be a slowly developing dark cloud, high above the mountains, but was in fact the smoke from ablative shielding burning off in the atmosphere.