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"Your best, then."

"Yes, sir." CRC-09,'571 turned aside to issue crisp orders on his helmet's command-comm.

Nick stopped cursing long enough to ask, "Are we leaving?"

"No time," Mace said, still staring into the screen.

It showed the airspace over Pelek Baw.

"It's that bad?" Nick spread his hands. "I mean, you've got a plan, right? You've got some trick to get us out of here?"

"No more tricks," Mace said.

The sky was full of droid starfighters.

Incoming.

"How long do we have?"

Mace shook his head again. "Seven-One. We hold the ranking militia officer, yes?"

"Yes, sir. Major Stempel."

"Get him."

CRC-09,'571 saluted stiffly. Mace acknowledged his salute with a wave of dismissal, and the clone commander strode away toward the huddle of prisoners.

"What good is he gonna do us?"

Mace pointed to a console a few meters away. "You see that? That is linked by landline to a secure transmitter beneath this bunker. Which is the only one on this planet that can send orders to those starfighters; that's the reason this bunker is a bunker. Whoever called them in had to be here."

Nick nodded, understanding. "The control code."

CRC-09,'571 returned, accompanied by two troopers who held between them an ashen-faced trembling man in the sweat-stained uniform of a militia major. "Major Stempel, I am Mace Windu," Mace began, but the shaking man cut him off.

"I-I know what you want. But I can't help you. I don't know it! I swear.

I never knew it. The codes are on a datapad-it's just a big personal datapad in an armored shell. He carries it with him. I didn't even know what he was doing-he just ordered me to relay his signal through the control console-"

Mace closed his eyes, and put his hand to his forehead.

He felt a headache coming on.

"Of course. I should have expected this," he muttered to himself. "I keep forgetting that he's smarter than I am."

"He? He who?" Nick demanded. "Who is this he you keep talking about?"

"Priority signal incoming," the trooper at the comm board announced. His helmet rested on the console at his elbow; a cybernetic headset hung across his brow and down one side of his jaw, but even so, when he looked back it was Jango Fett that Mace saw.

"He says his name is Colonel Geptun," said this stranger with the face of a dead man. "He's asking for you, General. He's calling to accept your surrender."

An immense, bluishly-translucent Lorz Geptun smiled his well-fed lizard smile down into the command bunker from the main holoprojector view. His khaki uniform shirt was again impeccably starched, and his aluminum-colored hair was swept back from his forehead.

"General Windu." He spoke with the same cheery lilt. "When last we met, I had no idea I was entertaining such a distinguished Jedi Master. Not to mention famous. It's an honor, sir. How was your trip upcountry?"

Depa was sitting up now, leaning on a desk, staring dazedly up at the screen. The light cast by Geptun's image threw black shadows that swallowed her eyes.

Kar and his Akks still paced. The clones stood motionless.

"I take it," said Mace Windu, "that you did not get my message."

"Message? Oh, the message. Yes, yes, quite. My Jedi Problem and all. Very thoughtful. Most appreciated."

"Then you didn't believe it."

"Should I have?"

"You had the word of a Jedi Master."

"Ah, yes. Honor, duty, justice. The flavor of the month. I can't imagine why I wouldn't simply take the word of a Jedi Master. Really, what could I have been thinking? Mmm-by the way, how is Master Billaba? Hasn't found the mass murders of our citizens to be a strain on her health, has she?"

"You," said Mace Windu, "said something about surrender."

Geptun's lips pressed together as though he tasted something sour.

"Really, Master Windu, it's not every day a man in my position achieves such a resounding victory. In any civilized society, I should be permitted a moment to savor it."

"Take all the time you want. Call back when you're finished."

"Ah. Quite. After all, I didn't call to gloat.