Star Wars_ Shatterpoint - Matthew Woodring Stover [87]
Mace had to tilt his head back to meet the Korun's stare. "I don't know your name."
"You can call me-"
"I didn't ask your name," Mace cut him off. "I just don't know it. I don't need to. You should get out of my way."
The guard's eyes looked scalded, and more than slightly crazed. "Out of your way, little Jedi?"
"I am taking the prisoners to the steamcrawler track." Mace nodded in that general direction. "I can go past you, or I can go over you. You pick."
"Over me? Can fly, you?"The vibroshields strapped to his forearms snarled to life. He raised them to either side of Mace's face. "Draw your toy weapon, little Jedi. Go ahead. Draw."
"My lightsaber? Why should I?" Mace raised a finger to tap his own forehead. "This is the only weapon I need."
"Yeah?" A sneer: "What, think me to death, you gonna?"
"You misunderstand." By way of explanation, he splattered the Korun's nose with a sharp head-butt.
The Korun staggered backward. Mace moved with him in perfect synchronization as though they were dancing, hands gripping the man's massive biceps. When the Korun started to recover his balance, his head naturally coming forward once more, Mace yanked on his arms, pulling him into another head-butt that brought Mace's forehead and the point of the Korun's chin together with a crack as sharp as a breaking rock.
Mace stepped back to let the semiconscious man collapse. The other guard snarled and lunged at Mace's back, only to find himself facing the business end of a sizzling purple lightsaber.
"He's alive," Mace said calmly. "So are you. For now. The next one of you pathetic nerfs who raises a hand to me will die for it. Do you understand?"
The Korun only stared at him with murder on his face.
"'Answer me!" Mace roared. With a convulsive snarl, he threw his lightsaber on the ground at the Korun's feet. Faster than the eye could follow, his hand flashed out, his thumb hooking the Korun's cheek while his fingers dug in behind the hinge of the man's jaw. He yanked the Korun's face to within a centimeter of his own, and there was open raging madness in his eyes. "DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?"
The Korun's mouth worked in speechless shock. Mace howled into his face,
"YOU WANT TO DIE? YOU WANT TO DIE RIGHT NOW? MAKE A MOVE! DO IT! DO IT
AND DIE!"
The astonished Korun could only blink and mumble and try to shake his head. Mace released the man's face with a contemptuous shove that sent the guard stumbling backward. Mace opened his empty hand, and his lightsaber flipped up from the ground and smacked into his palm. He tucked it back into the holster inside his vest.
"Never get in my way." His voice was again icily calm. "Ever."
He turned his eye to the pair of akk dogs, who were up and growling like looming thunderheads, spines bristling across their armored shoulders.
Mace stared at them.
First one, then the other, lowered its head and flattened those spines.
Tails tucked low, the akk dogs backed away.
Mace looked upslope, where Nick stood gaping in blank wonder. The captives huddled even closer together, none daring to make eye contact.
Mace beckoned.
By the time Nick and the grasser that carried the children arrived, the downed Akk Guard was stirring. But when he opened his eyes to find Mace still standing over him, he decided to stay on the ground.
"Okay, I admit it," Nick said as they passed by the guards and the dogs.
"That was pretty funny. And a little scary: I've never seen you angry before."
"You still haven't," Mace said softly. "Remember those rules of the jungle I was talking about? You just saw one in action."
"What rule was that?"
"When the big dog's walking," said Jedi Master Mace Windu, "little dogs step aside."
Icy rain splashed down through the canopy, and thunder rolled like turbojets of gunships passing overhead. Though the day had reached only midafternoon, the storm wrapped the jungle in late-twilight gloom.