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A handful of people in civilian clothes monitored the various stations like they knew what they were doing. There was an undertone of insistent muttering, and many of the console monitors showed only snow.

The lieutenant showed them to a small gloomy chamber with holoviewer walls and a heavy lammas table in the center. The only light in the chamber came from the holoviewers: they showed realtime images of the city. The ceiling sparkled with swooping droid starfighters and the hurtling ships they pursued. Burning buildings cast a dull flickering rose-colored glow that silhouetted a small plump man seated at the far end of the table.

"Master Windu. Please come in." Geptun's voice was thin, and the self-deprecating chuckle he offered had a fragile edge. "It appears that I miscalculated."

Mace said, "We both did."

"I never suspected that Jedi could be capable of such... savagery."

"Neither did I."

"People are dying out there, Windu! Civilians. Children."

"If your concern for children had included Korunnai, we wouldn't be here right now."

"Is that what this is? Revenge?" The colonel sprang jerkily to his feet.

"Do Jedi take revenge? How can you do this? How can you do..."

"You are not the only one," Mace said evenly, "with unreliable subordinates."

"Ah-" Geptun sank slowly back into his chair and lowered his head into his hands. A weak, sickly laugh shook his shoulders. "I understand. I didn't misjudge you. You misjudged your people. This is all your mistake, not mine."

"There will be plenty of guilt to go around. All that is important right now is the power to make it stop."

"And you have this power?"

"No," Mace said. "You do."

"You think I haven't tried"? You think I don't have every person in this station working to deactivate those starfighters? Look at this-you see all this?" Geptun's voice was going shrill. A shadow-wave of a trembling hand swept the images on the walls and ceiling. "These are land-line sensors. Hard-wired. Want to see our remotes'?"

He stabbed a control on the tabletop. All four walls and the ceiling fuzzed to eye-stinging white snow.

"See? Don't you see? All our signal-jamming controls are at the spaceport, too! Even if you wanted to order your pilots to stand down, you can't. We can't get through-it's out of our hands... We are helpless.

Helpless."

In the white light from the screens, Geptun looked pale and disheveled.

His eyes were red and puffy. His lips were swollen as if he'd been chewing them. Black sweat stained his blouse from his armpits to his belt.

Mace said, "There is one more thing you can try."

"Enlighten me."

"Surrender."

Geptun's laugh was bitter. "Oh, certainly. Why didn't I think of that?"

He shook his head. "Surrender to whom?"

"To the Republic," Mace said. "To me."

"To you? You're my prisoner. And you're wasting my time." His hand shook when he waved at the lieutenant. "Take them away."

The big man shrugged. "You heard him-" the lieutenant began, but he finished the statement with a sudden yelp of surprise and pain when the lightsaber he held ignited in his hand, the blade stabbing downward to drive a smoking hole through his thigh.

His hands opened; the pistols clattered to the floor and the lightsaber flipped into Mace's palm. "You hold it like this," Mace said, sizzling blade poised a centimeter from the end of the big man's nose.

The two regulars behind them cursed and fumbled with their rifles. Nick spun to face them and brought up his arms as both his pistol yanked themselves through the air to smack into his hands. "Let's just not, okay?"

The two militiamen, blinking and cross-eyed as they tried to focus on one muzzle apiece, settled on the better part of valor. Pale and grimacing, the lieutenant sagged against the holoviewer at his back, clutching his thigh.

"These are my terms," Mace said evenly. "The planetary militia will immediately cease all operations in the Lorshan Pass. You will turn over to me the starfighter control