Vastor took the vest, and pulled Mace’s lightsaber out of its pocket. This is yours?

“Yes, Kar,” Mace said quietly. “May I have it, please?”

Vastor gave a sidelong glance at an Akk Guard, and purred something. The guard smirked, nodding.

“Please,” Mace repeated humbly. “It’s my only weapon. I won’t be much good to anyone without it.”

You’re not much good to anyone with it, Vastor grunted. He held it out to Mace, but when the Jedi Master extended a hesitant hand to take it, Vastor flipped it carelessly away from him. The Akk Guard he’d purred at snatched it from the air.

The guard held it in one hand. The vibroshield on his other arm whined to life.

“Hey, Kar, c’mon, lay off, huh?” Nick’s face was twisted in an ongoing wince; it was painful to pity someone previously respected. “You won, didn’t you? Isn’t that enough? Why do you have to be such a—”

Vastor interrupted the young Korun with a backhanded cuff that knocked him to the ground. He never even looked at him; his gaze was still on Mace Windu.

The Jedi Master seemed not even to notice Nick lying on the ground, cradling his bloodied mouth, cursing continuously into his hand. “Don’t,” Mace said brokenly. “Don’t. You don’t understand—a Jedi’s lightsaber—”

Can be destroyed as easily as a Jedi Master. Vastor flicked his fingers as though brushing off a fly, but before the Akk Guard could bring the lightsaber’s handgrip against the edge of his shield—

“Kar …”

Through the gauzy opacity of the curtained howdah above, Depa’s voice had an eerie power, and it seemed to come from everywhere at once.

“To send him out into the jungle without his weapon would be murder, Kar. He is not the enemy.”

Not your enemy. Perhaps.

“Please, Kar. Keep it safe for him, and return it to him when he departs.”

He is departing now.

“He cannot travel,” Depa said. “Can you not feel it? You hurt him, Kar. Hurt him badly. He needs rest, and medical treatment. Let us take him to the base. He can ride the ankkox with me. Keep his lightsaber yourself. You’ve shown him he cannot face you without it.”

Vastor’s inhuman stare searched the blank face of the howdah, but now night had fully fallen. Glowvine light shimmered off the curtains, and nothing could be seen within.

Finally he gave an irritable shrug and extended a hand. The Akk Guard tossed the handgrip back to him, and Vastor tucked it into the waistband of his vine cat leather pants.

He cast Mace’s vest to the ground at the Jedi Master’s feet.

Did it hurt even more, knowing she was watching?

He no longer sounded mocking; this came in the tone of simple curiosity.

Slowly, painfully, like an old man protecting arthritic knees, Mace bent down to retrieve the vest. He said, “I’m not sure it could have hurt much more.”

You might remember that this all began because you refused to come when I told you.


- Shatterpoint, Chapter 12