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Cannon holes in the roof, he thought. Those cannons left shattered gaps big enough to dive through. If he could drop through one into the building-The chimney was only a meter taller than Mace was. He sprang to the top. Cannonfire blasted into its baked-clay wall, tracking up toward his legs. Before he could spot a roof hole big enough to dive through, the chimney bucked and began to crumble.

He clawed for his balance. A man shouted, "Hey, Windu! Happy name-day!"

and Mace got a glimpse of tarpaulins nipping back, and blue eyes and white teeth, and something came tumbling toward him through the air-It was shaped vaguely like a cryoban grenade but when Mace reached into the Force to slap it away, he recognized it: its feel was as familiar as the sound of Yoda's voice.

It was a lightsaber.

It was Depa's lightsaber.

Instead of slapping it away, Mace drew it toward him-and through the Force hefelf her, felt Depa as though she stood at his side and had taken his hand. Its grip smacked into his palm.

In the green flash of Depa's blade, the situation looked different.

The rest of the fight lasted less than five seconds.

The speeder bike above opened fire again and Mace slipped to one side, letting the Force move the blade. Blaster bolts ricocheted from the energy fountain and smashed the speeder's power cell, sending it flipping toward the ground within the alley's end. The blue-eyed Korun-Smiley, the one who had led him here-and the other man who had lain beneath the tarp held rapid-fire slugthrowers that they slipped over the roof rim to fill the alley below with a lethal swarm of bullets.

Two more Korunnai popped out of cover on the rooftop across the alley.

One had a slugthrower: flame leapt from its barrel. The other-a big light-skinned Korun girl with reddish hair-stood upright, wide-legged, a massive Mer-Sonn Thunderbolt tucked into her armpit, showering the alley with howling packets of galvenned particle beam.

The other pilot didn't like the new odds: he power-slewed his speeder and shrieked away above the rooftops. Smiley yanked his barrel around and took aim at the pilot's back-but before he could fire, the speeder bike flipped in the air, tumbled out of control, and crashed through the wall of a distant building at roughly two hundred kilometers an hour.

Smiley waved a hand, and the Korunnai stopped firing.

The sudden silence rang in Mace's ears.

"Was that fun or what?" Smiley grinned at Mace, and winked. "Come on, Windu: tell me that didn't warm your shorts a little."

Mace dropped to the rooftop and angled Depa's blade to a neutral position. "Who are you?"

"I'm the guy who just slipped your jiffies off the roaster. Let's go, man. Militia'll be here any minute."

The two Korunnai across the alley were already sliding down slender ropes toward the ground. Smiley and his friend hooked grapnels that might have been made of polished brassvine over the lip of the roof and paid out rope below. His friend slung his slug rifle and slipped over the edge.

Mace scowled toward the column of smoke that now rose from the gaping hole the second speeder bike had left in the building blocks away. Smiley caught his look and chuckled. "Love that fungus: ate his fly-by-wire.

Saved me a shot."

Mace muttered, "I'm just hoping nobody was home."

"Yeah, think of the mess." Smiley gave him that big white grin. "Forget about identifying bodies, huh? Better to just hose it out."

Mace looked at him. "I have a feeling," he said slowly, "that you and I aren't going to be friends."

"And that's got my heart pumping pondwater, let me tell you." Smiley took a rope in his hands and beckoned. "On the double, Windu. What do you want, an invitation? Flowers and a box of candy?"

The cascade of Depa's lightsaber highlighted both their faces the color of sunlight in the jungle. "What I want," Mace told him, "is for you to tell me what you were doing with this blade."

"The lightsaber?" The blue in his