Star Wars_ Shatterpoint - Matthew Woodring Stover [106]
"Yes, Kar. I know." He looked at Nick, who was now sitting on the ground staring balefully at Vastor. "Come on," Mace said softly. "I'll need you to help me up onto the ankkox."
FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU
Vastor was willing to let Nick help me, and treat my more serious injuries with supplies from a captured medpac. He was willing to believe the battering he'd inflicted on me was nearly crippling.
It wasn't far from the truth.
Nick was still simmering as he helped me to my feet, muttering under his breath a continuous stream of invective, characterizing Vastor as a
"lizard-faced frogswallower," and a "demented scab-chewing turtlesacker"
and a variety of other names that I don't feel comfortable recording, even in a private journal.
"That's enough," I told him. "I have gone to considerable trouble to keep us both alive, Nick. I'd prefer we stay that way."
"Oh, sure. Nice job on that." His voice was bitter, and he didn't want to meet my eyes.
I told him I was sorry about his hundred credits, and pointed out to him gently that no one had told him to bet on me.
He turned on me then, instantly furious, hissing savagely to keep his voice down, as the Akk Guards and the dogs were still milling about.
"This isn't about credits! I don't care about the credits-" He stopped himself, blinking, and his familiar smile flickered briefly across his lips. "Shee. Did I really just say that? Wow. So okay, sure, that was a lie: I care about the creds. I care a lot. But that's not why I'm angry."
I nodded, and told him I understood: he was angry at me. He felt like I'd let him down.
"Not me," he said. "I mean, come on: Jedi are supposed to stand for something, aren't you? You're supposed stand up for what's right. No matter what." Angry at me as he may have been, he still swung his head under one of my arms and held it across his shoulders, so he could help me walk.
It was appreciated. Only as the adrenaline and concussion shock were wearing off did I begin understand what a beating I had taken; later, with access to the medpac's scanner, I would discover two cracked ribs, a severe ankle sprain from the gripleaf trailer, a moderate concussion, and some internal bleeding, not to mention the bite wound on my neck and an astonishing variety of scrapes and bruises.
As Nick helped me up onto the ankkox, I discovered what had made him so angry with me: more than anything else, it was that I'd declared we had been wrong to free the prisoners.
"I don't care what you say," he muttered darkly. "I don't care what Kar says. There were kids there. And wounded. I mean: those Balawai, they weren't evil. They were just people. Like us."
"Nearly everyone is."
"We did the right thing, and you know it."
It dawned on me then that Nick was proud of himself. Proud of what we had done. It may have been an unfamiliar feeling for him: that peculiarly delicious pride that comes from having taken a terrible risk to do something truly admirable. Of overcoming the instinct of self-preservation: of fighting our fears and winning.
It is the pride of discovering that one is not merely a bundle of reflexes and conditioned responses; that instead one is a thinking being, who can choose the right over the easy, and justice over safety. The pride Nick took in this made me proud of him, too-though of course I could not tell him so. It would only have embarrassed him, and made him regret speaking at all.
I hope I never forget the fierce conviction on his face as he helped me climb the extended leg of the ankkox and clambered up onto its dorsal shell. "Just because Kar beat you like a rented gong doesn't mean he was right. Just because he won doesn't mean you were wrong to challenge him.
I can't believe you'd ever say those things."
His answer came from within the curtained darkness of the howdah at the top of the curved shell.
"If you spend much time around us, Nick, you will learn..." Depa's voice was strong and clear and as sane and gentle as it has always been in my heart. "You will learn