Star Wars_ Shatterpoint - Matthew Woodring Stover [61]
If, as some philosophers argued, there was a deeper purpose in the universe that the Jedi served, beyond their surface social function of preserving the peace of the Republic-if there was, in fact, a cosmic reason why Jedi existed, a reason why they were granted powers so far beyond the reach of other mortals-it must have had something to do with situations like this.
Mace opened himself to the Force. He could hear Yoda's voice: Size matters not-which, Mace had always privately considered, was more true for Yoda than it was for any of his students. Yoda would probably just reach out, lift the steamcrawler from the gully, and ca sually float it up the mountain to the outpost while croaking some enigmatic maxim about how Even a volcano is as nothing, compared to the power of the Force...
Mace was much less confident in his own raw power.
But he had other talents.
A new tremor from the eruption shook the dirt cliff under his feet. He felt it sag: undercut by the river of lava, the shaking was rapidly destroying the cliff's structural integrity. Any second now it would collapse, sending Mace down into the river, unless he did something first.
The something he did was to reach deep through the Force until he could feel a structure of broken rock ten meters below him and five meters in from the face. He thought, Why wait? and shoved.
The dirt cliff shook, buckled, and collapsed.
With a subterranean roar that buried even the thunder of the eruption and the clamor of the steamcrawler's laboring engine, hundreds of tons of dirt and rock poured into the river of lava, organics bursting into flames that the growing landslide instantly smothered as it built itself into a huge wedge-shaped berm of raw dirt across the gully; as lava slowly bulged and climbed the upstream face, the downstream side of the cliff continued to collapse, piling over cooler lava that hardened beneath it, pushing the hotter, more liquid lava into a wave that washed around the steamcrawler's side, welled to the lip of the precipice, then plunged in a rain of fire upon the black jungle far below.
The landslide built into a wave of its own that filled in the gully as it rolled down toward the steamcrawler and the screaming, sobbing children-and on the very crest of that wave of dirt and rock, backpedaling furiously to keep from being sucked under by the landslide's roll, came Mace Windu.
Mace rode that crest while the wave sank and flattened and finally lurched to a halt, its last remnants trickling into a ridge that joined Mace's position with the corner of the steamcrawler's cabin. Nearly all his concentration stayed submerged in the Force, spread throughout the slide, using a wide-focus Force grip to stabilize the rubble while he scrambled down to the steamcrawler's roof.
On the roof were two young boys, both about six, and a girl of perhaps eight standard years. They clung to each other, sobbing, terror-filled eyes staring through their tears.
Mace squatted beside them and touched the girl's arm. "My name is Mace Windu. I need your help."
The girl sniffled in astonishment. "You-you-my help?"
Mace nodded gravely. "I need you to help me get these boys to safety. Can you do that? Can you take the boys up the same way I came down? Climb right up the crest. It's not steep."
"I-I-I don't-I'm afraid-"
Mace leaned close and spoke in her ear only a little louder than the hush of the rain. "Me, too. But you have to act brave. Pretend. So you don't scare the little boys. Okay?"
The girl scrubbed her runny nose with the back of her hand, blinking back tears. "I-I-you're scared, too?"
"Shh. That's a secret. Just between us. Come on, up you go."
"Okay..." she said dubiously, but she wiped her eyes and took a deep breath and when she turned to the other two children her voice had the bossy edge that seems to be the exclusive weapon of eight-year-old girls.
"Urno, Nykl, come