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This was greeted with a round of half-pitying sneers and snorts and shaken heads.

Mace looked at Nick. "Do you doubt my ability to maintain a grip on the situation?"

"Oh, very funny," Nick said, massaging his arm.

"I won't bore you with the complexities of chain of command," Mace said.

"I'll stick to facts. Simple facts. Straightforward. Easy to understand.

Like this one: Master Billaba sent you here to bring me to her."

"Says who?"

"If she wanted me dead, you'd have left me in that alley. She wouldn't have sent you to divert or ditch me. She knows you're not good enough for that."

"Says you..."

"You're under orders to deliver me."

"Depa doesn't exactly give orders," Nick said. "It's more like, she just lets you know what she thinks you should do. And then you do it."

Mace shrugged. "Do you intend to disappoint her?" The uncertain looks they now exchanged drove that sick knife deeper into Mace's gut. They feared her-or something to do with her-in a way that they did not fear him. Nick said, "So?"

"So you need my cooperation." Mace checked the meter on the blasterpack: this one was depleted. He pulled the adapter out of his lightsaber's charge port.

Nick sat forward, a dangerous glint sparking in his blue eyes. "Who says we need your cooperation? Who says we can't just pack you up and send you Jedi Free Delivery?"

Instead of hooking in the next blasterpack, Mace balanced the lightsaber's handgrip on his palm. "I do."

Another glance made the rounds, and Mace felt swift currents ripple the Force back and forth among them. The brothers blanched. Chalk's knuckles whitened on the Thunderbolt. Nick's face went perfectly blank. Their hands shifted on their rifles. Mace hefted the lightsaber. "Reconsider."

He watched each of them mentally calculate the odds of bringing a weapon to bear in the cramped cabin before he could trigger his blade. "Your chances come in two shapes," he said. "Slim, and fat."

"Okay." Nick carefully lifted empty hands. "Okay, everybody. Stand down.

Relax, huh? Shee, how twitchy are we, huh? Listen, you need us, too, Windu-"

"MasterWmdu."

Nick blinked. "You're kidding, right?"

"I worked very hard to gain that title, and I've worked even harder to deserve it. I prefer that you use it."

"Urn, yeah. I was saying you need us, too. I mean, you're not from around here."

"I was born on the north slope of Grandfather's Shoulder."

"Yeah, okay. Sure. I know: you're from here. But you're still not from here. You're from the galaxy." Nick's hands clutched as though he were trying to pull words from the air. "Depa says-you know what Depa says?"

"Master Billaba."

"Yeah, okay, sure. Whatever. Master Billaba tries to explain it like this. It's like, you live in the galaxy, y'know? The other galaxy."

The other galaxy? Mace frowned. "Go on."

"She says... she says that you-all of you, the Jedi, the government, everybody-you're, like, from the Galaxy of Peace. You're from the galaxy where rules are rules, and almost everybody plays along. Haruun Kal, though, we're a whole different place, y'know? It's like the laws of physics are different. Not opposite, not up is down or black is white.

Nothing that simple. Just... different. So when you come here, you expect things to work a certain way. But they don't. Because things are different, here. You understand?"

"I understand," Mace said heavily, "that you're not my only option for local guides. Republic Intelligence set up a team to take me up-country-"

The looks exchanged among the Korunnai stopped Mace in mid-sentence. "You know something about that upcountry team." It wasn't a question.

"Upcountry team," Nick echoed derisively. "See, this is what I'm talking about. You just don't get it."

"Don't get what?"

Some of that manic glitter snuck back into his bright blue eyes. "Who do you think we left dead in that alley just now?"

Mace stared.

Nick showed him those gleaming teeth of his.

Mace looked at Lesh. Lesh spread his hands. His thyssel-stained