The Akk Guard returned, dragging Nick.

Vastor 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 five hundred creds, I’ll split it with you—”

Mace opened his eyes. “No.”

Vastor’s rumble broadened humorously, as though the lor pelek 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.”


- Shatterpoint, Chapter 12