“I am a Jedi Master.”

The man spat blood on the deck. “We know what that’s worth.”

“Obviously you don’t.” In the Force, Mace felt the dark flame that was the lor pelek fighting his way upslope toward the bunker. For an instant he was almost grateful—he’d be happy to leave the defense of Chalk and Besh in Vastor’s hands—but then he remembered the children. The children were still inside.

Where Vastor was going.

Massacres are necessary.

“I won’t argue.” Mace moved to the rim of the hole Vastor had cut, and looked up through the one he’d cut himself, judging his clearance. “Fight to a sure death, or surrender to a hope of life. The choice is yours,” he said, and threw himself upward into the burning night.

The whole compound was on fire: choking black smoke swirled above blazing lakes of flame-projector fuel. Blaster bolts flashed through every angle, their bursts an arrhythmic drumbeat under the howling chorus of the Korun shield-weapons. Vastor bounded up the slope toward the bunker in erratic zigzagging leaps, his shields flashing: catching stray bolts, carving metal, slashing flesh.

Mace dived from the top of the steamcrawler, flipped in the air, and hit the ground running. His blades wove a green and purple corona of power that splintered blasterfire into the sky.


- Shatterpoint, Chapter 8