Star Wars_ Shatterpoint - Matthew Woodring Stover [35]
"You couldn't have just warned me?"
"Sure we could. Which woulda decloaked us to Tenk and her Balawai pals.
Gotten us killed for nothing. Because you wouldn't have believed us anyway."
"I'm not sure I believe you now." Mace had turned his lightsaber over in his palm, feeling the unpleasant way the portaak amber gripped his skin.
"It's not lost on me that I only have your word on this. Everyone who might contradict your story is dead."
"Yeah."
"That doesn't seem to trouble you."
"I'm used to it."
Mace frowned. "I don't understand."
"That's what war is," Nick said. His voice had lost its mocking edge, and sounded almost kind. "It's like the jungle: by the time the Whatever-It-Is that's moving through the trees out there is close enough that you can see for sure what it is-or who it is-you're already dead. So you make your best guess. Sometimes you're right, and you take out an enemy, or spare an ally. Sometimes you're wrong. Then you die. Or you have to live with having killed a friend."
He showed his teeth, but his smile had no warmth left in it. "And sometimes you're right and you die anyway. Sometimes your friend isn't a friend. You never know. You cant know."
"I can. That's part of what being a Jedi is."
Nick's smile had turned knowing. "Okay. Take your pick. We're murderers who must be brought to justice. Or we're soldiers doing our duty. Either way, who else is gonna take you to De-uh, Master Billaba?"
Mace growled, "This is not lost on me, either."
"So what are you gonna do about it?"
He and the others watched Mace think it over.
And, in the end, the decision Mace reached surprised none of them. It disappointed only himself.
Nick had winked. "Welcome to Haruun Kal."
Now the groundcar's dust plume slipped into a fold of the hills, and was gone.
At the green wall above, Besh and Lesh had already vanished into the canopied shadow. Chalk and Nick waited for him just below the tree line, crouched in the scrub, watching the sky. Outlined against the green.
The wall of jungle was green only on the outside: between the leaves and trunks, among the fronds and flowers and vines, was shadow so thick that from out here under the brilliant sun, it looked entirely black.
Mace thought, It's not too late to change my mind.
He could leave Nick here. Could turn his back on Chalk and Besh and Lesh.
Hike along the road, catch a ride into Pelek Baw, hop a shuttle for the next liner on the Gevarno Loop...
He knew, somehow, that this was his last chance to walk away. That once he crossed the green wall, the only way out would be through.
He couldn't guess what he might find on the way-Except, possibly, Depa.
... you should never have sent me here. And I should never have come...
It was too late to change his mind after all.
He was in the jungle already.
He'd walked into it from the shuttle in the Pelek Baw spaceport. Maybe from the balcony on Geonosis. Or maybe he'd been just standing still, and the jungle had grown around him before he'd noticed...
Welcome to Haruun Kal.
His boots crunched through the husks of bracken as he toiled up the slope. Chalk nodded to him and vanished through the wall. Nick gave him a smile as if he knew what Mace had been thinking.
"Better keep up, Master Windu. Another minute, we woulda left you standing there. You want to be alone out here? I don't think so."
He was right about that. "If we should happen to get separated, is there a landmark I should make for?"
"Don't worry about it. Just keep up."
"But if we do, how will I find you?"
"You won't." Nick shook his head, smiling into the jungle. "If we get separated, you won't live long enough to worry about finding us. You get it? Keep up."
He walked into the trees and was swallowed by the green twilight.
Mace nodded