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These long, rocking rides through the jungle struck Mace with a deep uneasiness. Facing only backward, he could never see what was ahead, only what they had already passed; and even that had meanings he could not penetrate. Much of what he looked at, he could not be wholly sure if it was plant or animal, poisonous, predatory, harmless, beneficial-perhaps even sentient enough to have a moral nature of its own, good or evil...

He had a queasy feeling that these rides were symbolic of the war itself, for him. He was backing into it. Even in the full light of day, he had no clue what was coming, and no real understanding of what had passed.

Utterly lost. Darkness would only make it worse.

He hoped he was wrong. Symbols are slippery.

Uncertain...

During the day, he saw the akk dogs in glimpses through the jun gle as they ranged the rugged terrain around. They went before and behind, patrolling to guard the others from jungle predators, of which these jungles hid many that were large enough to kill a grasser. The three akks were bonded to Besh, Lesh, and Chalk. Nick had no akk of his own. "Hey, growing up on the streets of Pelek Baw, what would I do with an akk? What would I feed it, people? Heh, well, actually, now that I think about it-"

"You could find one now," Mace said. "You have the power; I've felt it.

You could have a Force-bonded companion like your friends do."

"Are you kidding? I'm too young for that kind of commitment."

"Really?"

"Shee. Worse than being married."

Mace said distantly, "I wouldn't know."

Mace would often get drowsy from the heat and the grasser's smooth gait.

What little sleep he got at night was plagued by feverish dreams, indistinctly menacing and violent. The first morning after he'd triggered his wallet tent's autofold and tucked it back into its hand-sized pocket in his kitbag, Nick had heard his sigh and saw him rub his bleary eyes.

"Nobody sleeps well out here," he'd told Mace with a dry chuckle. "You'll get used to it."

Day travel was a dreamlike flow from jungle gloom to brilliant sun and back again as they crossed grasser roads: the winding strips of open meadow left behind by grasser herds as they ate their way through the jungle. These were often the only times he'd see Chalk and Besh and Lesh, their grassers, and their akks. Using the akk dogs to keep in contact, they could spread out for safety.

Open air was the only relief they got from the insects: it was the territory of dozens of species of lightning-fast insectivorous birds. The dogflies and pinch beetles and all the varieties of wasp and bee and hornet stuck mostly to the relative safety of shade. Mace's skin was a mass of bites and stings that required considerable exercise of Jedi discipline to avoid scratching.

The Korunnai occasionally used juices from a couple of different kinds of crushed leaves to treat particularly nasty or dangerous stings, but in general they seemed not to really notice them, in the way a person rarely notices the way boots unnaturally constrict toes. They'd had a lifetime to get used to it.

Though they could have moved faster by following the grasser roads, frequent overflights by militia gunships made that too risky: Nick informed him that people riding grassers were shot on sight. Every hour or two, the akks gave warning of approaching gunships; their keen ears could pick up the hum of repulsorlifts from more than a kilometer away, despite the jungle's constant buzz and rustle, whir and screech, and even the distant thunder of the occasional minor volcanic eruption.

Mace got enough glimpses of these gunships to have an idea of their capabilities. They looked to be customized versions of ancient Sienar Turbostorms: blastboats retrofitted for atmospheric close-assault work.

Relatively slow but heavily armored, bristling with cannons and missile launchers, large enough to transport a platoon of heavy infantry. They seemed to travel in threes. The militia's