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If he'd had any.

Now the gunship's side-mounted laser turrets rotated to track them, and through the Force Mace felt their targeting computers lock on. The two damaged ships reached firing position, and they also locked on. They were coordinating their fire: he could not hope to dodge. So he didn't bother.

He brought Galthra to a halt beneath him.

He stood motionless, empty-handed, waiting for them to open fire.

Waiting to give them a brief tutorial on the art of Vaapad.

Their cannons belched energy and Mace threw himself into the Force, releasing all but his intention. It was no longer Mace Windu who acted: the Force acted through him. Depa's lightsaber snapped into his left hand while his own flipped into his right. The green cascade was a jungle-echo of the purple as they both met clawing chains of red.

On Sarapin, a Vaapad was a notoriously dangerous predator, powerful and rapacious. It attacked with its blindingly fast tentacles. Most had at least seven. It was not uncommon for them to have as many as twelve. The largest ever killed had twenty-one. The thing about a Vaapad was that you never knew how many tentacles it had until it was dead: they moved too fast to count. Almost too fast to see.

So did Mace's.

Energy sprayed around him, but only splatters of it grazed him here and there; the rest went back at the gunship. Though the Thunderbolt hadn't the power to penetrate their heavy armor, aTaim 8c Bak laser cannon is a whole different animal.

Ten bolts reached his blades. Two apiece went back at the dam aged ships, bursting against their armor and knocking them reeling to break their target lock. The other six hammered the cockpit of the third gunship, blasting a gaping hole in its transparisteel viewport.

Mace dropped the lightsabers, swung the over-under forward on its sling, and fired from the hip. It belched a single grenade that the Force guided right through that hole into the cockpit. The grenade made a dull, wet-sounding whump inside the gunship. A fountain of white goo splashed out the hole.

Mace grunted to himself; he thought he'd loaded Nytinite.

Then he shrugged: Eh. Same difference.

One of the forward turbojets sucked strings of hardening glop through its intake, squealed, and chewed itself to shrapnel. The gun-ship lurched wildly; with the crew glued fast in the grenade's glop, there was nothing they could do except watch in horror as their ship careened into the face of the ridge and detonated in an impressive explosion that splashed flame three hundred meters down the slope.

Mace thought, And now, for my next trick...

He released the over-under and extended his hands and both lightsabers hurtled back to his grip-But the two damaged gunships had peeled off and were already limping away into the smoke-stained sky.

He watched them go, frowning.

He felt oddly distressed.

Unhappy.

This had been... strange. Uncomfortable.

His rigorous self-honesty wouldn't allow him to deny the actual word that described the feeling.

It had been unsatisfying.

FROM THE PRIVATE JOURNALS OF MACE WlNDU

I don't know how long I stood there, frowning into the sky. Eventually, I recovered enough of my equanimity to slide off Galthra's back and release my hold on her Force-bond. She bounded off, searching for Chalk upslope among the burning rocks.

Nick came stumbling down the slope, picking his way through the dying flames, avoiding the half-slagged rocks that still glowed a dull red. He seemed most impressed by the fight. Adrenaline drunk and childishly giggly, he seemed deliriously happy, bubbling over with jittery enthusiasm. I don't recall much of what he said beyond some nonsense about me being a "walking one-man war machine."

Something like that. I'm not sure the word he used was walking.

Most of what he said was lost in the roar that lived inside my head: a hurricane-whirl of the thunder of my heart, echoes of the battle's explosions, and the tidal surge of the Force itself.

When he reached me, I saw that