Nick was down with the prisoners, leading by the reins a mangy, underfed grasser. This grasser had another dualsaddle setup like the one that had been blown to bits on Nick’s grasser back in the notch pass; each saddle was big enough to hold two children. Urno and Nykl rode in the upper, forward-facing saddle, gripping the heavy pelt of the grasser’s ruff, peering out from below its ears. Keela and Pell rode in the lower saddle, facing the rear and clinging to each other in mute despair.

Seeing those four children reminded the Jedi Master of the child who was not there, and he had to look away from Kar Vastor. In his head he saw the lor pelek holding the corpse of a boy. He saw the gleam of the shield through the wet streaked sheen of Terrel’s blood.

He could not meet Vastor’s eyes without hating him.

“And the children, too?” The words seemed to swell up Mace’s throat and push themselves out at the other man. “You give them to the jungle?”

It is our way. Vastor’s growl softened with understanding. You are thinking of the boy. The one in the bunker.

Mace still could not meet his eyes. “He was captured. Disarmed.”

He was a murderer, not a soldier. He attacked the helpless.

“So did you.”

Yes. And if I am taken by the enemy, I will get worse than I gave. Do you think the Balawai will offer me a clean, quick death?

“We’re not talking about them,” Mace said. “We’re talking about you.”

Vastor only shrugged.

Nick caught sight of them and gave a sardonic wave. “I’m not really a baby-sitter,” he called. “I just play one on the HoloNet.”


- Shatterpoint, Chapter 9