Nick was waiting for his next shot when a massive shadow rose up right in front of him; intent on the Force, Nick hadn’t seen him coming. He said, “Whoops.”

This one’s name was lolu. He had saved Nick’s life during a firefight, once. A long time ago.

“Hello, Nick,” lolu said, and drove his shield’s sizzling edge toward Nick’s neck.

[...]

The vibroshield flashed toward his neck.

Nick’s knees buckled and he bent backward like a drawn bow. Iolu’s fist grazed Nick’s nose as the horizontal vibroshield passed over the young Korun’s upturned face and bit into the wall so smoothly that the Akk Guard’s knuckles hit as well; the unexpected shock loosened his grip on the vibroshield’s activator and its hum died, leaving it stuck fast in the wall.

Before lolu could pull it back out, Nick flipped his pistol’s muzzle up against the Akk Guard’s extended elbow.

The slug didn’t quite blow his arm off.

Iolu swayed, stunned.

Chalk’s gun in Nick’s other hand came up under Iolu’s chin. “Never liked you anyway,” Nick said, and pulled the trigger.

The corpse fell against him. Its shattered arm slipped free of the shield’s retaining straps. Nick pushed himself sideways out from under, looking for another target, and the dead Guard slid down the wall.

Geptun was nowhere to be seen. He was either dead or down with the transceiver. Either way, there was nothing left to do but fight.

A knot of clone troopers stood back-to-back, firing desperately at one lone Akk Guard who leaped and spun and slaughtered with demonic precision.

No: not an Akk Guard.

It was Kar Vastor.

Nick leveled Chalk’s gun. “This is for her, scum-packer,” he muttered. “Never liked you either.”

But her pistol was too heavy for him to hold steady. His own seemed to have gained a dozen kilos as well. “What the frag—?”

His knees turned to cloth.

He looked over at Iolu’s corpse. The other shield, one that still hung silent along his dead arm, was stained bright red. Dripping.

Nick said, “Oh.”

He looked down. A huge diagonal gash opened his tunic across his abdomen, and his legs were soaked with blood. He sagged back against the wall.

“Oh,” he said again. “Oh, nuts.”

And, in the end, he was just too tired. Too old.

Too wounded.

Through the trace of Force connection he had with Nick, Mace felt the young Korun collapse. Something broke inside his head, and all his own wounds crashed upon him.

Every cut and bruise, every cracked bone and sprained joint, the man-bite on his shoulder and the hole through his guts: all of them blossomed into silent screams.


- Shatterpoint, Chapter 23